Exploring Adolescents’ Ratings of Social Profiles: The Impact of Eye Gaze

Abstract Understanding the impact of eye gaze on social interactions may mitigate some risks for adolescents who are either currently justice-involved or at risk of contacting the justice system. At present, there are no universally accepted assessments for determining age-appropriate levels of eye gaze for adolescents during social interactions. One way to evaluate an individual’s sensitivity to eye gaze is to determine if they can detect different levels of eye gaze in other people. Bush et al. Developmental Neurorehabilitation, 25 , 263–273, (2021) created three videos (profiles) of an actor displaying three different levels of eye gaze (directed toward an off-screen interviewer) and then asked college students to rate the actor in the three profiles using six statements. Bush et al. found college students provided the most favorable ratings for the profile with a high, but not the highest, level of eye gaze. This study used the same three video profiles of a speaker and six statements to assess ratings by two groups: non-justice-involved adolescents and justice-involved adolescents. Results indicate both groups rated the three speaker profiles differently for some statements. In particular, both groups rated the low eye gaze profile less favorably than the other two profiles. Analyses also revealed (1) non-justice-involved adolescents rated the high eye gaze profile as less attentive but more likely to get an important job than the justice-involved group and (2) justice-involved adolescents rated the “socially valid” profile as less likely to have friends than non-justice-involved adolescents. Implications and next steps are discussed.