Nonconscious Mimicry: Its Ubiquity, Importance, and Functionality

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Nonconscious Mimicry Its Ubiquity, Importance,
and Functionality

• Tanya Chartrand
• Duke University

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Agenda (3 chapters, plus/minus 2)

• What do we mimic? (Ubiquity)
• Why is mimicry important? (Importance)
• Why do we mimic? (Functionality)

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Agenda

• What do we mimic?
• Why is mimicry important?
• Why do we mimic?

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What do we mimic?

• Verbal mimicry accents, latency to speak,
  speech rate, and utterance duration, syntax,
  words and clauses (Bock, 1986 Cappella
  Planalp, 1981 Giles Powesland,1975 Levelt
  Keltner, 1982 Matarazzo Wiens, 1972 Webb,
  1969)
• Facial mimicry (OToole Dubin, 1968 Dimberg,
  Thunberg and Elmehed, 2000)
• Emotional mimicry (Lundquist Dimberg, 1995
  Hatfield, Cacioppo, Rapson, 1994 Neumann
  Strack, 2000 Friedman and Riggio, 1981)
• Behavioral mimicry (Sheflen, 1964 Bernieri,
  1988 Bernieri, Reznick, Rosenthal, 1988
  Bavelas, Black, Chovil, Lemery, and Mullett,
  1988 LaFrance Broadbent, 1976)

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Empirical Demonstration of Nonconscious
Behavioral Mimicry

• P interacts with 2 confeds, 1 after the other
• P and Confeds take turns describing what they see
  in various photographs

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Empirical Demonstration of Nonconscious
Behavioral Mimicry

• P interacts with 2 confeds, 1 after the other
• P and Confeds take turns describing what they see
  in various photographs
• C1 shakes foot and C2 touches face throughout
  session (or vice-versa)
• Hidden videocamera Does P shake foot more with
  foot shaker and touch face more with face
  toucher?

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Amount of mimicry
Number of times per min.
Chartrand Bargh (1999))
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Agenda

• What do we mimic?
• Why is mimicry important?
• Why do we mimic?

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Why is mimicry important?

• Nonconscious mimicry interesting phenomenon
  only or theoretically important topic for
  scientific inquiry?
• Argument for latter It is associated with many
  things psychologists (and people) care about
• Nonconscious mimicry helps us affiliate with
  others, leads us to like and help others more,
  brings our attitudes in line with others, saves
  cognitive resources, changes self-construal and
  cognitive processing style, and improves
  self-regulation.

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Mimicry is important for

• Liking and rapport
• Affiliation goals
• Pro-social orientation
• Persuasion
• Cognitive processing style
• Mood
• Self-regulation

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Mimicry is important for

• Liking and rapport
• Affiliation goals
• Pro-social orientation
• Persuasion
• Cognitive processing style
• Mood
• Self-regulation

Note important either because they are
triggers of greater nonconscious mimicry, or
because they are downstream consequences of
mimicry
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Mimicry is important for

• Liking and rapport
• Affiliation goals
• Pro-social orientation
• Persuasion
• Cognitive processing style
• Mood
• Self-regulation

Note important for social interactions, but
also for the individual in non-social ways
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Mimicry is important for

• Liking and rapport
• Affiliation goals
• Pro-social orientation
• Persuasion
• Cognitive processing style
• Mood
• Self-regulation

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Mimicry is important for

• Liking and rapport
• Correlational work (Bernieri, LaFrance, Sheflen)
• Experimental demonstration (Chartrand Bargh,
  1999)
• Affiliation goals
• Pro-social orientation
• Persuasion
• Cognitive processing style
• Mood
• Self-regulation

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Liking and smoothness of interactions

• Ps interact with one Confederate on photo
  description task
• Confederate either mimicked the posture and
  mannerisms of P or not (between subjects)
• P reports on exit questionnaire how much he/she
  liked Confed and how smoothly interaction went
  with Confed

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Ratings of confederate and interaction
Chartrand Bargh (1999)
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Mimicry is important for

• Liking and rapport
• Correlational work (Bernieri, LaFrance, Sheflen)
• Experimental demonstration (Chartrand Bargh,
  1999)
• Affiliation goals
• Pro-social orientation
• Persuasion
• Cognitive processing style
• Mood
• Self-regulation

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Mimicry is important for

• Liking and rapport
• Affiliation goals
• Directly activating goal
• Feeling different from others
• Power
• Social exclusion
• Pro-social orientation
• Persuasion
• Cognitive processing style
• Mood
• Self-regulation

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Proportion of time confederate was mimicked
Lakin Chartrand (2003)
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Mimicry is important for

• Liking and rapport
• Affiliation goals
• Directly activating goal
• Feeling different from others (Uldall, Hall,
  Chartrand, unpubl.)
• Power (Cheng Chartrand, 2003)
• Social exclusion
• Pro-social orientation
• Persuasion
• Cognitive processing style
• Mood
• Self-regulation

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Social Exclusion Mimicry

• Mental visualization experiment - manipulation of
  exclusion through Cyberball (Williams et al.,
  2000)
• Participant interacts with new partner for
  second experiment photo description
• Confederate shook foot throughout
• Hidden camera recorded participant foot-shaking

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Proportion of time confederate was mimicked
Lakin, Chartrand, Arkin (unpublished)
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Social Exclusion Mimicry

• Female only participants
• Excluded by ingroup (females) or outgroup (males)
  during cyberball game
• Then interacted with male or female Confederate
  in photo description task
• Does being excluded by ingroup lead to more
  mimicry than being excluded by outgroup? If so,
  will they mimic ingroup C more than outgroup C?

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Social Exclusion Mimicry
Proportion of time C was mimicked
Lakin, Chartrand, Arkin (under revision)
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Social Exclusion Mimicry
Proportion of time C was mimicked
Lakin, Chartrand, Arkin (under revision)
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Social Exclusion Mimicry
Proportion of time C was mimicked
Lakin, Chartrand, Arkin (under revision)
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Mimicry is important for

• Liking and rapport
• Affiliation goals
• Directly activating goal
• Feeling different from others
• Power
• Social exclusion
• Pro-social orientation
• Persuasion
• Cognitive processing style
• Mood
• Self-regulation

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Mimicry is important for

• Liking and rapport
• Affiliation goals
• Pro-social orientation
• Feeling close to others in general
• Helping others
• Mediated by self-construal?
• Persuasion
• Cognitive processing style
• Mood
• Self-regulation

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General pro-social orientation

• Ps mimicked or not
• Study 1 DV How close do you feel to others in
  general? (1-7 scale)
• Study 2 DV seating distance from unknown other
• Prediction if mimicry leads to general prosocial
  orientation that goes beyond dyad, mimicked Ps
  should feel closer to generalized other

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How close do you feel to people in general?
Seating distance from unknown other ( chairs)
(Ashton-James, van Baaren, Chartrand, Decety,
in press)
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Mimicry is important for

• Liking and rapport
• Affiliation goals
• Pro-social orientation
• Feeling close to others in general
• Helping others (van Baaren et al., 2003, 2004)
• Mediated by self-construal? (Ashton-James, van
  Baaren, Chartrand, Decety, in press)
• Persuasion
• Cognitive processing style
• Mood
• Self-regulation

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Mediated by self-construal

• Participants mimicked or not
• Complete 20-statement test (Who am I? Kuhn
  McPartland, 1954)
• Asked to fill out extra survey without pay
• Prediction mimicry will lead to interdependent
  self-construal and more helping, and former will
  mediate latter

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Self-construal mediates effect of mimicry on
pro-social behavior
interdependent self-construal
.41
.38
mimicry
helping
.45
.21
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Mimicry is important for

• Liking and rapport
• Affiliation goals
• Pro-social orientation
• Feeling close to others in general
• Helping others
• Mediated by self-construal?
• Persuasion
• Cognitive processing style
• Mood
• Self-regulation

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Mimicry is important for

• Liking and rapport
• Affiliation goals
• Pro-social orientation
• Persuasion
• Attitudes become more similar (Bailenson Yee,
  2005)
• Even when guard is up (Tanner, Ferraro,
  Chartrand, Bettman, under review)
• Cognitive processing style
• Mood
• Self-regulation

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Mimicry is important for

• Liking and rapport
• Affiliation goals
• Pro-social orientation
• Persuasion
• Attitudes become more similar
• Even when guard is up
• Cognitive processing style
• Mood
• Self-regulation

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Mimicry is important for

• Liking and rapport
• Affiliation goals
• Pro-social orientation
• Persuasion
• Cognitive processing style (van Baaren, Horgan,
  Chartrand, Diekmans, 2004)
• Mood (van Baaren et al., in press)
• Self-regulation

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Mimicry and Self-Regulation

• Self-regulation attempts to actively alter
  ones own states and responses (Rans EP)
• e.g., avoiding temptations, maintaining
  concentration, physical stamina, overriding
  responses, making difficult decisions
• Hypothesis Well-coordinated mimicry will leave
  people with relatively more resources to carry
  out a subsequent self-regulatory task
• Poorly coordinated mimicry will leave people with
  relatively fewer resources to carry out a
  subsequent self-regulatory task

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Mimicry and Self-Regulation

• Ps mimicked or anti-mimicked by confederate
• Then engage in Operation game where they try to
  remove small objects from holes without touching
  the metal sides
• Prediction those mimicked would perform better
  than those anti-mimicked

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Self-regulation on Operation game
Pieces removed (p .007)
Number of errors (p .10)
Finkel, Campbell, Brunell, Burke, Chartrand,
Dalton (2006)
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Mimicry and Procrastination

• Ps either mimicked or antimimicked by confederate
• Ps study for upcoming math test in presence of
  time-wasters
• Dv time spent practicing math problems
• Prediction Mimicked Ps practice more than
  anti-mimicked Ps

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Practicing Math
Dalton, Chartrand, Finkel (under review)
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Why does mimicry affect self-regulation?

• Does mimicry replenish resources?
• Well coordinated interaction leaves people with
  more regulatory resources than they started with,
  thereby improving performance on a
  self-regulatory task (Fredrickson, 1998
  Fredrickson et al., 2005)
• OR
• Does antimimicry deplete resources?
• Disrupting automatic process makes interaction
  consume more self-regulatory resources and
  impairs performance on a self-regulatory task
  (Finkel, Campbell, Brunell, in press cf.
  Keltner Haidt, 2001)

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Why does mimicry affect self-regulation?

• Ps either mimicked, antimimicked, or interact
  with confederate through a divider
• Ps complete taste-perception test
• Dv grams of cookies consumed
• Prediction
• Mimicked ps would eat fewer grams of cookies than
  antimimicked ps
• control condition will diagnose driver of effect

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Eating Cookies
Dalton et al. (under review)
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Eating Cookies
Dalton et al. (under review)
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Can mimicry impair self-regulation?

• Assumed that mimicry coordination
• Could antimimicry coordination?
• Cross-race interactions
• eye contact, standing distance, smiling, and
  blinking (signals negative arousal tension
  Crosby et al., 1980 Dovidio et al., 1997 Fazio
  et al.,1995)
• Hand body movement (Richeson Shelton, 2003)
• Mimicry?

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Can mimicry impair self-regulation?

• Half Ps are White and half are Non-White
• All ps either mimicked or anti-mimicked by White
  confederate
• Dv Stroop Interference
• Prediction
• White mimicked Ps would show less interference
  than antimimicked Ps
• Effect would be reversed for Non-White Ps

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Stroop Interference
Dalton et al. (under review)
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Stroop Interference
Dalton et al. (under review)
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Attention as mechanism?

• Divided attention task
• Photo description task (while mimicked or not)
• Signal detection task (animal versus non-animal
  words) 30 of 300 trials were animal words
• Measured accuracy (d) zscore of false alarm
  zscore of hit rate
• Prediction no mimicry should be associated with
  more attention (worse performance on signal
  detection)

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Performance on signal detection task
Discrimination index (d)
Note pattern holds for first 2 minutes of task
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Mimicry is important for

• Liking and rapport
• Affiliation goals
• Pro-social orientation
• Persuasion
• Cognitive processing style
• Mood
• Self-regulation

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Agenda

• What do we mimic?
• Why is mimicry important?
• Why do we mimic?

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Why do we mimic?

• 1. mimicry as communication
• 2. mimicry as a passive and automatic response
  (perception-behavior link)
• 3. mimicry from an evolutionary perspective
• 4. merging old with new mimicry translates
  neural responses into social responses

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Thanks to
Claire Ashton-James John Bargh Jim Bettman Clara
Cheng Amy Dalton Rosie Ferraro Eli Finkel
Terry Horgan Jessica Lakin Will Maddux Rob
Tanner Brian Uldall Rick van Baaren