Eye Contacts and Verbal Responses during Interviews and the Visual Scanning in Repressors and Sensitizers

Eye contacts and verbal responses of repressers and sensitizers were examined. In Experiment I eleven repressers and sixteen sensitizers, abstracted from 169 undergraduates, were participated to twice interviews where emotional questions and neutral one were inquired. The verbal response time, the duration of verbal answer and eye contact were analyzed. Mean eye-contact duration of the repressers was signficantly longer than that of the sensitizers. In Experiment II cruel, sexual and neutral still pictures were presented. Eye movements during the observation of them were recorded. Four repressers, four sensitizers and four middle scorers were participated. In the results the repressers looked at significant part more frequently than the sensitizers. These results of the two experiments suggest that sensitizers do not defend themselves by looking at stressful stimulus.