Abstract
Gaze direction is a cue that regulates feelings of affiliation in social interactions. Phubbing research suggests that phone-gazing during a copresent interaction hampers the development of affiliation in interactions by signaling that one is not fully attentive. Because the phone represents the "virtual other," phone-gazing may be more detrimental than gazing at another object. This experimental vignette study explores whether phone-gazing during a conversation harms affiliation more than newspaper-gazing. Additionally, it examines whether the harmful impact of phubbing can be mitigated or aggravated by the phone gazer's interlocutor role-namely, that of speaker versus listener. The results reveal that phone-gazing during an interaction harms affiliation more than newspaper-gazing. Also, phone-gazing hampers affiliation more while listening than while speaking. These findings suggest that phone-gazing incurs unique judgments of relational devaluation in the interaction partner. The activation of these judgments, however, is contingent upon interlocutor role.
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 303-313 |
Number of pages | 11 |
Journal | Communication research reports |
Volume | 35 |
Issue number | 4 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 2018 |
Keywords
- Affiliation
- Gaze
- Mobile Phone
- Nonverbal Behavior
- Phubbing
- Vignette Study
- QUALITY
- CONVERSATION
- DISTANCE
- DEVICES
- MODEL