Mimicry and Prosocial Behavior van Baaren et al. (2004)

1. Mimicry and Prosocial Behaviorvan Baaren et al. (2004) ABSTRACT—Recent studies have shown that mimicry occurs unintentionally and even among strangers. In the present studies, we investigated the consequences of this automatic phenomenon in order to learn more about the adaptive function it serves. In three studies, we consistently found that mimicry increases prosocial behavior. Participants who had been mimicked were more helpful and generous toward other people than were nonmimicked participants. These beneficial consequences of mimicry were not restricted to behavior directed toward the mimicker, but included behavior directed toward people not directly involved in the mimicry situation. These results suggest that the effects of mimicry are not simply due to increased liking for the mimicker, but are due to increased prosocial orientation in general.

2. Goal: To investigate whether mimicry makes people more prosocial to just the person who mimics or people other than the mimicker benefit • Study 1 – • IV: Half participants mimicked using Chartrand & Bargh (1999) procedure • Procedure: Participants verbally described opinions of ads, while mimicked or not • DV: Whether participants picked up pens that experimenter dropped • Results: Mimicked participants significantly more likely to pick up pens • Study 2 – • IV: same as Study 1 • Procedure: Similar to study 1, but this time different experimenter dropped pens • DV: whether participants picked up pens • Results: mimicked participants significantly more likely to pick up pens even though experimenter was not the mimicker • Study 3 – • IV: Combined studies 1 & 2 in 2 (mimic or not) x 2 (same experimenter or different) • Procedure: After mimicked, participants paid but told would complete one more task. Either by same or different experiment participants told about charity doing research and filled out (filler) questionnaire. Asked to drop in locked box and told had option to donate to charity • DV: Whether participants donated • Results: Mimicked participants significantly more likely to donate, and did not vary if same or different experimenter offered chance to donate

3. The current studies aimed to find out whether a nonintentional form of mood contagion exists and which mechanisms can account for it. In these experiments participants who expected to be tested for text comprehension listened to an affectively neutral speech that was spoken in a slightly sad or happy voice. The authors found that (a) the emotional expression induced a congruent mood state in the listeners, (b) inferential accounts to emotional sharing were not easily reconciled with the findings, (c) different affective experiences emerged from intentional and nonintentional forms of emotional sharing, and (d) findings suggest that a perception-behavior link (Chartrand & Bargh, 1999) can account for these findings, because participants who were required to repeat the philosophical speech spontaneously imitated the target person’s vocal expression of emotion. 2000, JPSP

4. Studies 1 -3: Listening to a happy target person led to self- and other-reported happier moods, regardless of cognitive load and speaker attractiveness Likewise, listening to a sad target person led to self- and other-reported sadder moods, regardless of cognitive load and speaker attractiveness Study 1 Study 4 Study 3

5. Lakin, J. L., Chartrand, T. L., & Arkin, R. M. (2008). I am too just like you: Nonconscious mimicry as an automatic behavioral response to social exclusion. Psychological Science, 19, 816-822.

6. Prior work: • Social exclusion • Mimicry • This work: • Strategic mimicry to increase belongingness in response to social exclusion • Why is it important to explore automatic ways of responding to social exclusion? (low cost, low risk, automatic)

7. You Want to Know the Truth?Then Don’t Mimic!Stel et al. (2009) ABSTRACT— Mimicry facilitates the ability to understand what other people are feeling. The present research investigated whether this is also true when the expressions that are being mimicked do not reflect the other person’s true emotions. In interactions, targets either lied or told the truth, while observers mimicked or did not mimic the targets’ facial and behavioral movements. Detection of deception was measured directly by observers’ judgments of the extent to which they thought the targets were telling the truth and indirectly by observers’ assessment of targets’ emotions. The results demonstrated that nonmimickers were more accurate than mimickers in their estimations of targets’ truthfulness and of targets’ experienced emotions. The results contradict the view that mimicry facilitates the understanding of people’s felt emotions. In the case of deceptive messages, mimicry hinders this emotional understanding.

8. Goal: To examine whether mimicry makes people better judges of intentions when individuals are purposefully being deceptive • Design: 3 (mimicry: yes vs. no vs. control) x 2 (deception: yes vs. no) • DV’s: Observers’ ratings of truthfulness, targets’ and observers’ ratings of felt emotions

9. The Schema-Driven Chameleon: How Mimicry Affects Executive and Self-Regulatory ResourcesDalton, Chartrand, Finkel, 2010, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 98, 605-617 The authors propose that behavioral mimicry is guided by schemas that enable efficient social coordination. If mimicry is schema driven, then the operation of these schemas should be disrupted if partners behave in counternormative ways, such as mimicking people they generally would not or vice versa, rendering social interaction inefficient and demanding more executive and self-regulatory resources. To test this hypothesis., Experiments 1-3 used a resource-depletion paradigm in which participants performed a resource-demanding task after interacting with a confederate who mimicked them or did not mimic them. Experiment 1 demonstrated impaired task performance among participants who were not mimicked by a peer. Experiments 2 and 3 replicated this effect and also demonstrated a significant reversal in social contexts where mimicry is counternormative, per se. Experiment 4 used a divided attention paradigm and found that resources are taxed throughout schema-inconsistent interactions. These findings suggest that much-needed resources are preserved when the amount of mimicry displayed by interacting individuals adheres to norms, whereas resources are depleted when mimicry norms are violated.

10. Main Hypothesis: People have implicit schemas for the amount of mimicry that “should” take place in a given social interaction. When this schema is violated (either by too much or too little mimicry), the interaction becomes inefficient, and the person being mimicked becomes depleted. depletion occurs over the course of the entire interaction Experiment 1 When mimicry is schema consistent no mimicry increases depletion Experiment 4 When mimicry is schema inconsistent mimicry increases depletion Conclusions It is not the mere presence of mimicry that makes social interactions efficient—it varies by the individual’s schema for that particular social situation. Schema consistent mimicry increases efficiency, decreasing depletion, and schema inconsistent mimicry does the opposite. Experiment 2

11. Mind your mannerisms: Behavioral mimicry elicits stereotype conformity Leander, Chartrand and Wood. JESP 2011. Four studies demonstrate that the affiliative responding that is typically encouraged by mimicry can be manifested in conformity to shared gender and racial stereotypes. In Studies 1 and 2, mimicry by a confederate led participants to perform in accordance with stereotypes about their race and gender on a math task. Studies 3 and 4 tested the boundary conditions of mimicry's influence: in Study 3, mimicry elicited stereotype-consistent math performance only among participants who believed in stereotypes about their group that could drive others' expectancies. Study 4 established that the mimicry must occur in the context of affiliation for it to elicit stereotype-consistent behavior, highlighting the important moderating role of affiliation motivation in this phenomenon. In sum, these findings suggest that mimicked individuals are more conforming to the stereotyped expectancies that they believe others hold for them, which suggests not only a potential negative consequence of mimicry but also a subtle manner through which stereotypes may be perpetuated.

12. Leander, Chartrand and Wood (cont’d)