Gaze as Social Control: How Very Young Children Differentiate "The Look" From a "Mere Look" by Their Adult Caregivers

Abstract

In this article, I examine very young children's differentiations of the gazing actions of their adult caregivers for how they do or do not implicate an intervention in their sanctionable activities. Such features of a gaze as (a) its duration, (b) whether or not it "fixes" on a target, and (c) its production relative to other activities of the caregiver constitute some gazes as mere shifts of visual attention to check children's activities and others as portending an intervention. I hence demonstrate two practices of looking, termed here a mere look and the look, to project in different ways for children what another will do next. At issue is how children manage their conduct by reference to their assessments of caregivers' gazes and how caregivers' deployment of the look provides for children's systematic self-inspection of and self-action toward the aspects of their conduct they take to have drawn a caregiver's gaze.