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Eye-rolling has been defined as a passive-aggressive response to an undesirable situation or person. The gesture is used to attack the targeted person without physical contact, and usually considered an immature response.

History
Eye-rolling has been present in literature since at least the 16th century, according to the Oxford English Dictionary. Shakespeare periodically would use the gesture in his works to portray lust or passion for another character, as used in his poem The Rape of Lucrece. In this time period, eye-rolling was used commonly as an expression of desire or flirtation, commonly used in literature for centuries. Up until about the 1950s this same meaning was used in music and films, but began translating to the meaning known today. The widespread use of eye-rolling in a negative connotation wasn't present until the 1980s.

In Society
The facial expression is used more often by adolescent girls than boys, and is one of the most common forms of non-verbal communication among humans. When studying exclusively adolescent females, the eye-roll gesture was observed to be the most prominent response to displeasure. 13-year-old girls showed eye-rolling to be the main sign of aggression toward their peers in social situations, and has been proven to be one of the top causes of social anxiety or depression in adolescents. In a study conducted by John Gottman, it was determined that eye-rolling is one of the #1 factors of predicting divorce, followed by criticism, defensiveness, and stonewalling. The gesture shows the other party that what they are doing is so annoying that it is not even worth looking at or giving a thought, which is why many relationships are destroyed by excessive use of the action.

Evolution
There has been much speculation about the fact that eye-rolling is an evolutionary trait of women, which is why it is performed more by females than their male counterparts. Psychologists suggest that it was developed as "a low-risk way to express aggression and disapproval." Women in the past were more motivated to use survival tactics that did not involve physical violence in conflict including cut-eye, or side-eye, likely related to maternal instincts. The action of looking away in rejection or disapproval has been traced to many different cultures, who use eye-rolling for similar purposes, suggesting that it is a somewhat innate reaction to unpleasant stimuli.