Duration of Attention and Need for Affiliation
Ss classified as having a low or high need for affiliation by the Edwards Personal Preference Schedule viewed photographs rated as low affiliative, high affiliative, or neutral for as long as they wished. It was predicted that there would be a tendency for Ss to look longer at pictures congruent with their personality scores. No support was found; however, the results indicated that Ss with a high need for affiliation looked longer at all stimuli than Ss with a low need for affiliation. This finding was explained in terms of the high-affiliation Ss attempting to “please” E by looking longer at all stimuli. Evidence was also found suggesting that (a) the degree to which S believes E‘s instructions that the experiment is not a memory test and (b) Ss' self-ratings of nervousness are not related to looking time or the need for affiliation. Interest ratings and their relation to looking time may depend on Ss' personality.