Giving Men the Come-On: Effect of Eye Contact and Smiling in a Bar Environment

Abstract

In four conditions, a female confederate established eye contact with a male in a drinking establishment. Eye contact was established once or multiple times within a 5-min. period. After eye contact was established, the confederate smiled or did not smile. In a fifth condition, the female smiled and looked down in the general direction of the designated subject. The dependent variable was whether or not the subject approached and talked to the confederate within a 10-min. period. Two attractive female confederates were each assigned 10 subjects in each of the five conditions. The highest approach behavior (60%) was observed in the condition in which there was repeated eye contact plus smiling. In each of the remaining four conditions, the confederate was approached less than 20% of the time. It was suggested that males may need certain encouragement before approaching a female stranger in a bar environment and that this encouragement is most likely to be effective when it is both repeated and when it is delivered by multiple nonverbal channels.