The Effects of Advice Seeker’s Gaze Direction and Expression on Advice Giving

doi:10.16719/j.cnki.1671-6981.20240326

Abstract

Abstract: Advice giving is a new hot topic in behavioral decision research. For the recipient, advice is helpful in many situations. However, the proposer is faced with relatively difficult work, and usually is difficult to judge whether his proposal is useful or welcome in advance. Advice is not always needed, advice giving can be perceived as challenging and face-threatening. Individuals usually collect sufficient information and consider before giving advice.
In this interpersonal interaction process, facial information is first involved, yet few researches have probed into the effects of the combination of gaze direction and expression, which are both significant facial signals during communication. To fill this gap, this study focuses on the influences of gaze direction and expression of the advice seeker on advisor’s advice giving, exploring the mediating effects of advisor’s perceived authenticity and state prosocial motive. Based on the Shared Signal Hypothesis, individuals have a greater sensitivity for the congruent emotion-gaze combination. The congruent expression-gaze signal enhances relative emotion perception and increases advice taking. Furthermore, during the advice-giving process, the authenticity of emotional performance is an important dimension that affects adviser's trust on the advice seeker, and the degree of a person's being trust is closely related to his or her persuasiveness and influence. Also, adviser will spontaneously generate moral emotion and state prosocial motivation according to the need of help from others, which may play a role as well.
This research used a mixed design -- 2 gaze direction (forward and strabismus; between subjects) * 2 expressions (sad and smile). Subjects were recruited through an online platform and randomly assigned to the forward group or strabismus group. There were 81 participants (38 males) with an average age of 29.35 years (± 5.53 years).
The results showed that: (1) When advice seekers’ signals of gaze direction and expression are consistent, advisors are more likely to take the advice. Specifically, compared with the front sad face group, when seeing a strabismus sad face, advisors are more inclined to give advice. (2) Advisor’s perceived authenticity and state prosocial motive play as mediators between advice seeker’s gaze direction and advice giving. We confirmed that specific combination of gaze direction and expression has different effect on advice giving, which is of great significance to the development of theoretical and practical research in the field of advice giving. Our results supported the shared signal theory and the EASI model. Meanwhile, the importance of contextual factors such as gaze direction on facial expression understanding is emphasized. In addition, the revelation of the mediations of advisor’s perceived authenticity and state prosocial motive is instructive to the field of behavioral decision research. We measured the perceived authenticity of advisors, emphasizing the importance of individuals' subjective perception, and fill in some gap that need to be supplemented in related fields. The results suggest that, in the process of seeking advice, we can better promote others' advices by maintaining the consistency of the signals of expression and gaze direction.

Key words: advice giving, gaze direction, expression, perceived authenticity, state prosocial motive, shared signal hypothesis

摘要： 基于共享信号假说,本研究关注建议寻求者的注视方向和表情对建议提出的影响及机制。结果发现：（1）微笑条件下,建议者对于寻求者的斜视或正视面孔的建议倾向没有显著差异;相较于正视悲伤的面孔,面对寻求者斜视悲伤的面孔,建议者更倾向于提出建议。（2）建议提出者感知到的真实性和其状态性亲社会动机在其中起到中介作用。结果证实了特定注视方向和表情的不同组合对建议提出的不同影响,对建议行为研究具有重要意义。

关键词: 建议提出, 注视方向, 感知真实性, 亲社会动机, 共享信号假说

Song Aijia, Duan Jinyun. The Effects of Advice Seeker’s Gaze Direction and Expression on Advice Giving[J]. Journal of Psychological Science, 2024, 47(3): 718-725.

宋艾珈, 段锦云. 寻求者注视方向及面部表情对建议者建议提出的影响^*[J]. 心理科学, 2024, 47(3): 718-725.

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