I am too just like you: nonconscious mimicry as an automatic behavioral response to social exclusion

ABSTRACT— Research across various disciplines has demonstrated that social exclusion has devastating psychological, emotional, and behavioral consequences. Excluded individuals are therefore motivated to affiliate with others, even though they may not have the resources, cognitive or otherwise, to do so. The current research explored whether nonconscious mimicry of other individuals—a low-cost, low-risk, automatic behavior—might help excluded individuals address threatened belongingness needs. Experiment 1 demonstrated that excluded people mimic a subsequent interaction partner more than included people do. Experiment 2 showed that individuals excluded by an in-group selectively (and nonconsciously) mimic a confederate who is an in-group member more than a confederate who is an out-group member. The relationship between exclusion and mimicry suggests that there are automatic behaviors people can use to recover from the experience of being excluded. In addition, this research demonstrates that nonconscious mimicry is selective and sensitive to context.     

Effects of mimicking: acting prosocially by being emotionally moved

Mimicry is functional for empathy and bonding purposes. Studies on the consequences of mimicry at a behavioral level demonstrated that mimicry increases prosocial behavior. However, these previous studies focused on the mimickee. In the present paper, we investigated whether mimickers also become more helpful due to mimicry. In two studies, we have demonstrated that participants, who mimicked expressions of a person shown on a video, donated more money to a charity than participants who did not mimic. Moreover, the processes by which mimicry and prosocial behavior are related largely remain empirically unexamined in existing literature. The results of Study 2 confirmed our hypothesis that affective empathy mediates the relationship between mimicry and prosocial behavior. This suggests that mimicry created an affective empathic mindset, which activated prosocial behaviors directed toward others. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Seeing others through rose-colored glasses: An affiliation goal and positivity bias in implicit trait impressions

People infer traits from other people's behaviors without intention, awareness, or effort, and this spontaneous trait inference (STI) effect has been shown to be robust. The purpose of the present research was to demonstrate the flexibility of STIs despite the ubiquity. Specifically, we examined the effect of an affiliation goal on STI formation and found a positivity bias. In Experiment 1, perceivers with an affiliation goal formed more positive (versus negative) spontaneous trait inferences compared to those without this goal and those who had been primed with semantically positive, affiliation-unrelated words. Experiment 2 provided evidence that this effect was driven by a motivational state by showing that the positivity bias occurs only when a perceiver's goal to affiliate remains unfulfilled. The goal's interaction with trait valence showed focused, goal-relevant bias. These studies are the first to show that STIs form flexibly in response to perceivers' primed social goals supporting the functionality account of STIs in implicit impression formation.     

Big Picture,Bad Outcomes: When Visual Perspectives Harm Health Goal Pursuit

People often fail to achieve health goals, which compromises their well‐being. Prior research suggests that seeing events through an observer's eyes (i.e., adopting a third‐person perspective) should facilitate goal pursuit. However, we find that third‐person perspectives discourage goal‐consistent intentions and behavior for health goals when goal centrality is low (i.e., the goal is peripheral to one's self‐concept). In Experiment 1, people who adopted a third‐person perspective chose more sugary foods if they considered a healthy eating goal to be more peripheral to the self. Experiment 2 examines why a third‐person perspective can hinder goal pursuit; it encourages a breakdown in implemental thinking which, in turn, increases negative self‐conscious emotions. While high goal centrality buffers people from negative effects on goal intentions, low centrality does not. Experiment 3 demonstrates that this effect is robust when goal centrality is manipulated. We recommend that consumers pursuing health goals (and individuals who support them) exercise caution when employing perspective‐based strategies, as they may backfire for people at greatest risk of goal abandonment.     

Form and Function in Motor Mimicry Topographic Evidence that the Primary Function Is Communicative

Motor mimicry is behavior by an observer that is appropriate to the situation of the other person, for example, wincing at the other's injury or ducking when the other does. Traditional theories of motor mimicry view this behavior as an indicator of a vicarious cognitive or empathic experience, that is, of taking the role of the other or of “feeling oneself into” the other person. However, Bavelas, Black, Lemery, and Mullett (1986) have shown that motor mimicry of pain is affected by communicative variables and acts as a nonverbal message indicating that the observer is aware of and concerned about the other's situation. This raises a more general question: Is communication its primary or secondary function? We propose (i) that motor mimicry functions as a nonverbal, analogic, relationship message about similarity between observer and other and (ii) that this message is encoded according to Gestalt principles of form, in that the observer physically mirrors the other. In other words, the observer maintains a relationship with the other. The special case of left/right leaning when observer and other are facing each other permits a test of our theory against two theories that treat motor mimicry as an indicator of vicarious experience. The results of three experiments showed that when motor mimicry by an observer facing someone who is leaning left or right occurs, it is both displayed and decoded in the form consistent with a communication theory; this form is called reflection symmetry. We conclude that, because of the topography of the response, the primary function of motor mimicry must be communicative and that any relationship to vicarious processes is secondary. A similar analysis of other nonverbal behaviors may well reveal that they are also expressions to another person rather than expressions of infrapsychic states.     

The chameleon effect: the perception-behavior link and social interaction.

The chameleon effect refers to nonconscious mimicry of the postures, mannerisms, facial expressions, and other behaviors of one's interaction partners, such that one's behavior passively and unintentionally changes to match that of others in one's current social environment. The authors suggest that the mechanism involved is the perception-behavior link, the recently documented finding (e.g., J. A. Bargh, M. Chen, & L. Burrows, 1996) that the mere perception of another's behavior automatically increases the likelihood of engaging in that behavior oneself. Experiment 1 showed that the motor behavior of participants unintentionally matched that of strangers with whom they worked on a task. Experiment 2 had confederates mimic the posture and movements of participants and showed that mimicry facilitates the smoothness of interactions and increases liking between interaction partners. Experiment 3 showed that dispositionally empathic individuals exhibit the chameleon effect to a greater extent than do other people.     

The forest, the trees, and the chameleon: context dependence and mimicry

Three studies examined the relation between context dependence in information processing and behavioral mimicry. In Experiment 1, a field-dependent cognitive style was related to a greater tendency to mimic a target's behavior. In Experiment 2 context dependence was experimentally manipulated, and results showed more mimicry in the session where a context-dependent processing style was induced compared with the session where a context-independent processing style was induced. Experiment 3 provided evidence for bidirectionality in the relation between context dependence and mimicry. Specifically, participants whose posture and behavior had been unobtrusively mimicked by an experimenter subsequently processed information in a more context-dependent manner than did nonmimicked participants. Taken together, these results illustrate the interplay between basic cognitive and behavioral processes.     

Social cues for creativity: The impact of behavioral mimicry on convergent and divergent thinking

We present behavioral mimicry as a social cue for creative thinking. Specifically, we argue that being mimicked by an interaction partner cues convergent thinking by signalling a social opportunity for collaboration, while not being mimicked cues divergent thinking by signalling a social demand for improvisation and innovation. To test this theory, we experimentally manipulated whether individuals were subtly mimicked or not by an experimenter during a 5 min social interaction, and subsequently measured participants’ capacity for convergent thinking (Experiment 1) and divergent thinking (Experiment 2). The results point to the importance of understanding how social relationships influence the creative processes and contributes to the growing understanding of the social function of behavioral mimicry.     

The honest mirror: Morality as a moderator of spontaneous behavioral mimicry

Two studies examined whether morality-related information has a greater impact than sociability- or competence-related information upon the spontaneous mimicry of an interaction partner. Participants were video recorded during an interaction with a confederate previously presented as moral versus lacking morality, or sociable versus lacking sociability (Study 1), or competent versus lacking competence (Study 2). Two coders rated the extent to which participants imitated the gestures of the confederate, participants’ postural openness, and the general smoothness of the interaction. When the confederate lacked moral qualities, mimicry and postural openness were lower, and the interaction was less smooth than when the confederate was highly moral, unsociable, or incompetent. Moreover, our findings showed that global impression is the key mediating mechanism driving such an effect. Indeed, knowing that another person behaved immorally resulted in a negative impression, which in turn hindered behavioral mimicry.     

Towards a resolution of the personality triad: Persons,situations, and behaviors

The issue of the variant vs. invariant in personality often arises in different forms of the “person–situation” debate, which is based on a false dichotomy between the personal and situational determination of behavior. Previously reported data are summarized that demonstrate how behavior can vary as a function of subtle situational changes while individual consistency is maintained. Further discussion considers the personal source of behavioral invariance, the situational source of behavioral variation, the person–situation interaction, the nature of behavior, and the “personality triad” of persons, situations, and behaviors, in which each element is understood and predicted in terms of the other two. An important goal for future research is further development of theories and methods for conceptualizing and measuring the functional aspects of situations and of behaviors. One reason for the persistence of the person situation debate may be that it serves as a proxy for a deeper, implicit debate over values such as equality vs. individuality, determinism vs. free will, and flexibility vs. consistency. However, these value dichotomies may be as false as the person–situation debate that they implicitly drive.     

I need you closer to me: Effects of affiliation goals on perceptions of interpersonal distance

People's perceptions are often distorted in a way that aligns with their desires and goals. We argue that having a goal to affiliate changes the perception of interpersonal distance in a way that may help to fulfil this affiliation goal. As other people are goal‐relevant when having an affiliation goal, we expected that people with affiliation goals would estimate the distance between themselves and another person as smaller than people with no affiliation goals. In two studies, we manipulated affiliation goals by priming participants with affiliation or control words. Our main dependent variable was the estimated interpersonal distance between themselves and the experimenter. Results showed that participants primed with affiliation estimated the interpersonal distance as smaller compared with participants primed with control words. We did not obtain reliable differences between the affiliation and control conditions on other distance and height estimations. Our results suggest that having or not having affiliation goals influences people's perception of the distance between them and other people.     

Visualizing actions from a third‐person perspective: effects on health behavior and the moderating role of behavior difficulty

Visualizing behavior from a third‐person (vs. first‐person) perspective can produce stronger motivation to enact the behavior. However, the effects of perspective on health behaviors have been mixed. Hypothesizing that the difficulty of the visualized behavior might moderate the effect of perspective, two experiments manipulated the difficulty of the visualized behaviors (fruit/vegetable consumption; exercise) plus perspective and subsequently measured motivation (Experiments 1 and 2) and behavior (Experiment 2). In both experiments, the third‐person perspective produced stronger motivation to perform the easier, but not the more difficult, behavior. This effect extended to behavior in Experiment 2. Under certain conditions, encouraging people to visualize behavior from a third‐person perspective could represent a useful and cost‐effective means of promoting health behavior change.     

When values matter: Expressing values in behavioral intentions for the near vs. distant future

It was predicted that because of their abstract nature, values will have greater impact on how individuals plan their distant future than their near future. Experiments 1 and 2 found that values better predict behavioral intentions for distant future situations than near future situations. Experiment 3 found that whereas high-level values predict behavioral intentions for more distant future situations, low-level feasibility considerations predict behavioral intentions for more proximate situation. Finally, Experiment 4 found that the temporal changes in the relationship between values and behavioral intentions depended on how the behavior was construed. Higher correspondence is found when behaviors are construed on a higher level and when behavior is planned for the more distant future than when the same behavior is construed on a lower level or is planned for the more proximal future. The implications of these findings for self-consistency and value conflicts are discussed.     

Predicting and understanding behavioral volitions: the interplay between goals and behaviors

In traditional attitude research behavioral volitions have been usually considered in isolation from the broader context that justify their formation. Most behaviors are functional to goal achievement and can be better understood and predicted by considering relevant constructs at the goal level. The interplay between behaviors and goals is the focus of this study. Constructs specified by the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) are examined together with constructs proposed by the Model of Goal‐directed Behavior (MGB) and two further goal constructs (goal desires and goal perceived feasibility). These theoretical ideas are tested on a sample of 104 students having a goal for body weight regulation or for studying effort. The results indicate that the inclusion of distal goal‐related constructs significantly improve the prediction of behavioral volitions, over and above the prediction based on behavior‐related constructs. The MGB and an extended model outperform the TPB and show substantial predictive power. The implications of the findings for research on behaviors and goals are discussed. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Self-monitoring and mimicry of positive and negative social behaviors

This study examined the role that self-monitoring plays in behavioral mimicry. Participants were exposed to videotaped targets who were laughing, yawning, frowning, or neutral in their expression. Participants’ behavioral mimicry while viewing the targets was recorded. It was hypothesized that higher self-monitors would show greater mimicry than lower self-monitors. It was also hypothesized that participants would respond differently to positive and negative target expressions. Participants who scored higher in self-monitoring did mimic the targets’ behaviors more often, and participants showed less mimicry of frowns than of laughs or yawns.     

Person,setting, and interaction contributions to nursery school social behavior patterns1

Within a nursery school environment, 8,930 behavioral observations were taken on 17 preschool children in six settings over a two-month period. Two different data analysis techniques were used. The aggregate analysis showed that person, setting, and interaction all contributed significantly to behavior patterns. The setting was significantly stronger than person. The individual analysis found that subjects' median Person Pattern values were correlated significantly and negatively with IQ and age, suggesting that younger children and those with lower IQ's had more consistent behavior across different settings. This was also true of children who had been at the school more than one year. Implications for predicting behavior were discussed, noting the need to study person and setting relative to one another for particular behaviors in different categories of environments.     

Mimicking attractive opposite-sex others: the role of romantic relationship status

Based on the recent literature indicating that nonconscious behavioral mimicry is partly goal directed, three studies examined, and supported, the hypothesis that people who are involved in a romantic relationship nonconsciously mimic an attractive opposite-sex other to a lesser extent than people not involved in a relationship. Moreover, Studies 2 and 3 revealed that romantically involved persons tended to mimic an attractive alternative less to the extent that they were more close to their current partner. Finally, Study 3 provided preliminary support for a potential underlying mechanism, revealing that the effect of relationship status on level of mimicry displayed toward an opposite-sex other is mediated by perceived attractiveness of the opposite-sex other. The present findings suggest that behavioral mimicry serves an implicit self-regulatory function in relationship maintenance. Implications for both the literature on relationship maintenance and the literature on behavioral mimicry are discussed.     

Social tuning of the self: consequences for the self-evaluations of stereotype targets

These experiments examined how social interactions with individuals who ostensibly have stereotype-relevant views affect the self-evaluations of stereotype targets. Participants believed they were going to interact, or actually interacted, with a person who ostensibly had stereotype-consistent or stereotype-inconsistent views about their social group. Consistent with shared reality theory, participants' self-evaluations (Experiments 1, 2, and 3) and behavior (Experiment 2) corresponded with the ostensible views of the other person when affiliative motivation was high. This occurred even when it was likely to be detrimental to participants' nonaffiliative outcomes (Experiment 3). Experiment 4 showed that self-evaluative shift away from the ostensible views of another person was a function of social distance motives, also consistent with shared reality theory.     

L’effet d’une similarité fortuite entre deux individus sur le comportement d’imitation

A host of studies in social psychology showed that we mimic the verbal and nonverbal behaviors of our counterparts, particularly when we need to interact with them or when we appreciate them. For scientists, mimicry could serve as facilitator in interpersonal relations between strangers or between people who expressed the desire to strengthen their relations. Three experiments were carried out that show that incidental similarity (same birthday date, same first-name, and same finger-prints) between a participant and a target presented on a videotape is associated with an increase in mimicry of nonverbal behavior of the target. The theory of the desire of affiliation is used to explain the link between similarity and mimicry in our social interactions.