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Is It True, I Can Automatically Become Just Like You? Print E-mail
SciMed - Soc & Psych
TS-Si News Service   
Saturday, 16 August 2008 16:30
Fitting in.
TS-Si Soc & Psych
Champaign, IL, USA. A new analysis of data from dozens of studies illuminates how we choose what we do and do not hear. People tend to avoid information that contradicts what they already think or believe, but certain factors...
Los Angeles, CA, USA. Research shows that chronic grief activates pleasure areas of the brain, findings that could change how health professionals treat the disorder. Grief is universal, and most of us will probably experie...
Evanston, IL, USA. Whether they be high-flying politicians or ordininary citizens of good reputation, there can be a fall from grace. Sometimes moral actions lead to bad, making no sense at all. A study observes that extreme...
Nashville, TN, USA. New research indicates the way our brain handles how we move through space — including being able to imagine literally walking in someone else's shoes — may be related to how and why we experience empa...
Fairbanks, AK, USA. Both boys and girls have issues, but Judith Kleinfeld says boys are the ones who get the raw deal. Her review of issues characterizing American boyhood, how they compare to those affecting girls, and the...
Washington, DC, USA. Depending on how much the opinions of other people matters to you, being excluded from their group can decrease your mood, while reducing self-esteem and feelings of belonging. In extreme cases, exclusion is blamed for pathologically negative behavior (e.g., the Virginia Tech shootings).
 
As a result, we often try to fit in with others in both conscious and automatic ways. Psychologists have studied this tendency of people to copy automatically the behaviors of others. They tried to find out how this mimicry can be used as an affiliation strategy. The study results appear in Psychological Science.
 
I Am Too Just Like You: Nonconscious Mimicry as an Automatic Behavioral Response to Social Exclusion. Jessica L. Lakin, Tanya L. Chartrand, and Robert M. Arkin. Psychological Science; published ahead of print, August 2008. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-9280.2008.x.x  [ Download PDF ]
 
Psychologists Jessica L. Lakin of Drew University, Tanya L. Chartrand of Duke University, and Robert M. Arkin of The Ohio State University conducted a series of experiments.
  • In one experiment, participants played an online ball-tossing game with three other computer players, and were either excluded or included in the game.

    After reporting their enjoyment of the game and what they thought of the other players, participants were asked to describe a photograph to a female confederate who constantly moved her foot, but not enough so that it was consciously noticed by the participant.

    The researchers hypothesized that participants in the excluded condition would move their foot more to match the confederate.
     
  • In the next experiment, the procedure was kept mostly the same. This time, however, all of the participants were female. They were excluded from either a group of males or females during the ball-tossing game and interacted with either a male or female confederate during the photo description task.

    Participants were also questioned more thoroughly on how they felt after the game, such as how much they felt they belonged to the group.

    The researchers predicted that if the female participants were ostracized by females and later interacted with a female confederate, then they would mimic the confederate more than other participants.
The results provided strong support for the researchers’ hypotheses.
  • In the first experiment, participants who had been excluded from the game mimicked the confederate during the second task more than other participants.
     
  • In the second experiment, participants excluded by members of their own sex mimicked a confederate of the same sex more than participants in other conditions.

    There was also an inverse relationship between feelings of belonging and nonconscious mimicry.
The study suggests that although nonconscious mimicry is an automatic action, it is still influenced by a variety of factors, such as situation and the target of the affiliation.
 
“People whose need to belong is threatened do not necessarily mimic the first person they see; they take into account aspects of the situation and act accordingly, all unconsciously,” the authors conclude.
 
“Conceptualized this way, automatic mimicry is certainly is a useful addition to the human behavioral repertoire.”
 


I Am Too Just Like You: Nonconscious Mimicry as an Automatic Behavioral Response to Social Exclusion. Jessica L. Lakin, Tanya L. Chartrand, and Robert M. Arkin. Psychological Science; published ahead of print, August 2008. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-9280.2008.x.x  [ Download PDF ]

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.

 
TS-Si News ServiceThe TS-Si News Service is a collaborative effort by TS-Si.org editors, contributors, and corresponding institutions. The sources can include the cited individuals and organizations, as well as TS-Si.org staff contributions. Articles and news reports do not necessarily convey official positions of TS-Si, its partners, or affiliates. We welcome your comments. Use the form below to leave a public comment or send private correspondence via the TS-Si Contact Page. We will not divulge any personal details or place you on a mailing list without your permission.

 

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Last Updated on Saturday, 16 August 2008 09:27