AROUSAL SEEKING AND THE MAINTENANCE OF MUTUAL GAZE IN SAME AND MIXED SEX DYADS Francis T. McAndrew Jane E. Warner ABSTRACT: Thirty male and thirty female undergraduateswere randomly paired in either sameor mixed sex dyadsand were askedto maintain silent mutual gazefor as long as possibleover two or three trials. The results indicatedthat high arousal seek- ers were better able to do this than low arousal seekers,and that this difference was especially strong in samesex dyads. The factors controlling the maintenance of eye contact (mutual gaze) and the breaking of gaze have long been of interest to psychol- ogists studying nonverbal behavior. Most explanations of how gaze behaviors are controlled have concentrated on the regulatory func- tions that gaze serves in social interaction (Argyle and Dean, 1965; Kendon, 1967), the significance of gaze direction in the signalling of dominance and submissiveness (Thayer, 1969; Rago, 1977; Strong- man and Champness, 1968; Exline, 1971; Exline, Ellyson, & Long, 1975; Dovidio and Ellyson, 1982; Ellyson, Dovidio, Corson, & Vin- icur, 1980; Ellyson and Dovidio, 1985), or its role in indicating affili- ation and liking (Rubin, 1970; El[sworth, Friedman, Perlick, & Hoyt, 1978; Efran and Broughton, 1966). Another body of research has repeatedly demonstrated that eye contact between two people is a highly arousing event (Gale, Lucas, Nissim, & Harpham, 1972; Gale, Spratt, Chapman, & Smallbone, 1975; Donovan and Leavitt, 1980; Nichols and Champness, 1971; Kleinke and Pohlen, 1971). Francis T. McAndrew is an associate professor of psychology at Knox College. Jane Warner is a recent graduate of Knox College. All correspondence and requests for reprints should be directed to McAndrew at the Department of Psychology, Knox College, Galesburg, Illinois 61401. journal of Nonverbal Behavior 70(3), Fail ~986 168 © 1986 Human Sciences Press