Liking through others' eyes : social moderators of mimetic desires
(2014)
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- Authors
- Supervisors
- Corneille, Olivier
- Abstract
- Gaze-following and joint attention have been extensively studied in developmental, clinical and cognitive psychology (chapter 1). It is only recently, however, that researchers examined its evaluative effect: objects are evaluated more favourably when perceived to receive others' attention, an effect coined "mimetic desire" (chapter 2). The contention of this dissertation is that this effect can be moderated by social factors that are assumed to influence observers’ appraisal of the gazing person. Specifically, mimetic desires are facilitated with trustworthy gazing persons, but reversed with untrustworthy gazing persons (chapter 3). In addition, they are more likely to be observed following observer’s experience of social exclusion (chapter 4) and are facilitated following the administration of oxytocin to the observers (chapter 5). As a whole, the latter evidence supports the involvement of interpersonal rather than purely attentional effects in mimetic desires. More generally, whereas psychological research has been mostly interested in the effect of valence on attention, research on mimetic desires speaks to a blossoming interest in the opposite relationship: how attention impacts attitude acquisition.
- Affiliations
UCLouvain SSH/IPSY - Psychological Sciences Research Institute
Citations
Treinen, E. (2014). Liking through others’ eyes : social moderators of mimetic desires. https://hdl.handle.net/2078.5/51977