Abstract
While some people enjoy looking at their faces in the mirror, others experience emotional distress. Despite these individual differences concerning self-viewing in the mirror, systematic investigations on this topic have not been conducted so far. The present eye-tracking study examined whether personality traits (self-esteem, narcissism propensity, self-disgust) are associated with gaze behavior (gaze duration, fixation count) during free mirror viewing of one’s face. Sixty-eight adults (mean age = 23.5 years; 39 females, 29 males) viewed their faces in the mirror and watched a video of an unknown person matched for gender and age (control condition) for 90 s each. The computed regression analysis showed that higher self-esteem was associated with a shorter gaze duration for both self-face and other-face. This effect may reflect a less critical evaluation of the faces.
Highlights
Looking at one’s face in the mirror can evoke strong feelings
When we look at a mirror, the left side of our face is reflected on the right side
This study investigated whether gaze parameters while viewing one’s face in the mirror are associated with the personality traits of self-esteem, self-disgust, and narcissism propensity
Summary
Looking at one’s face in the mirror can evoke strong feelings. A prominent example from Greek mythology is Narcissus, who fell in love with his own image reflected in a pool of water. In a study by Barnier and Collison [3], five minutes of mirror gazing decreased satisfaction with one’s appearance, perceived attractiveness, and self-esteem. Such adverse effects were especially prominent in those observers who had been dissatisfied with their appearance already before the mirror viewing [4]. Previous investigations have examined gaze behavior toward photos or videos depicting self-face vs other-face [5,6,7,8,9,10].
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