1. Nonconscious Mimicry: Its Ubiquity, Importance, and Functionality
Tanya Chartrand
Duke University

2. Agenda (3 chapters, plus/minus 2)
What do we mimic? (Ubiquity)
Why is mimicry important? (Importance)
Why do we mimic? (Functionality)

3. Agenda
What do we mimic?
Why is mimicry important?
Why do we mimic?

4. 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 (O’Toole & 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)

5. 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

9. 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?

10. Amount of mimicry Number of times per min. Chartrand & Bargh (1999))
We explained this using the perception-behavior link. Merely perceiving the other person engage in the behavior is enough to make us do that same behavior ourselves.
There could have been other accounts for this, like the mimicry was there because the 2 people were affiliating with each other and they had a sense of rapport. We tried to eliminate an affiliation-based account for this to show that even in minimal conditions, you get mimicry.
So we had conditions where the confederates were not likeable.
Also the confederates didn’t make eye-contact with the subject and didn’t smile at the subject, and they weren’t talking to each other, there was no direct interaction, just with the experimenter.
So minimal conditions, presumably not much affiliation was going on here between the subject and confederates, and yet we still found mimicry. This was initially important for us to demonstrate that it could be a passive perception-behavior thing going on. Affiliation was not necessary for it to occur.
Chartrand & Bargh (1999))

11. Agenda
What do we mimic?
Why is mimicry important?
Why do we mimic?

12. 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.

13. Mimicry is important for…
Liking and rapport
Affiliation goals
Pro-social orientation
Persuasion
Cognitive processing style
Mood
Self-regulation

14. 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

15. 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

16. Mimicry is important for…
Liking and rapport*
Affiliation goals*
Pro-social orientation*
Persuasion
Cognitive processing style
Mood
Self-regulation*

17. 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*

18. 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

19. Ratings of confederate and interaction
Chartrand & Bargh (1999)

20. 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*

21. 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*

22. Proportion of time confederate was mimicked
Lakin & Chartrand (2003)

23. 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*

24. 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

25. Proportion of time confederate was mimicked
Lakin, Chartrand, & Arkin (unpublished)

26. 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?

27. Social Exclusion & Mimicry
Proportion of time C was mimicked
Lakin, Chartrand, & Arkin (under revision)

28. Social Exclusion & Mimicry
Proportion of time C was mimicked
Lakin, Chartrand, & Arkin (under revision)

29. Social Exclusion & Mimicry
Proportion of time C was mimicked
Lakin, Chartrand, & Arkin (under revision)

30. 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*

31. 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*

32. 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

33. “How close do you feel to people in general?”
Seating distance from unknown other (# chairs)
(Ashton-James, van Baaren, Chartrand, & Decety, in press)

34. 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*

35. 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

36. Self-construal mediates effect of mimicry on pro-social behavior
interdependent
self-construal
.41*
.38*
mimicry
helping
.45*
.21*

37. 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*

38. 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*

39. 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*

40. 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*

41. Mimicry and Self-Regulation
Self-regulation = attempts to actively alter one’s own states and responses (Ran’s 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
If mimicry is well coordinated between the confederate and the participant in the picture description task, the participant will be left with relatively more resources for
The subsequent self-regulatory task.
If mimicry is poorly coordinated between the confederate and the participant, the participant will have fewer resources for

42. 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

43. Self-regulation on “Operation” game
Pieces removed (p = .007)
Number of errors (p = .10)
Finkel, Campbell, Brunell, Burke, Chartrand, & Dalton (2006)

44. 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
manipulate both affect regulation and mimicry and then measure performance on a self-regulatory task. This allows us to compare the effect of mimicry to the effect of affect regulation. We wanted to make this comparison because affect regulation has been shown to affect subsequent self-regulation in many studies.
Rubic’s cube, several current popular magazines (e.g., Cosmopolitan, Maxim, and National Geographic), and a hand-held Tetris video game.

45. Practicing Math Dalton, Chartrand, & Finkel (under review)
As we predicted, participants who were mimicked spent more time practicing for the math test than participants who were antimimicked.
Dalton, Chartrand, & Finkel (under review)

46. 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)
So, we found evidence that antimimicry depletes people relative to mimicry.
This is a really interesting finding because it suggests that something as subtle as an interaction partner’s hand and body movements can go on to affect people’s self-regulatory functioning
Our first study documented the basic effect, and our second study goes on to explore why this effect occurs.
Is it mimicry replenishing people, or is it antimimicry depleting people?

47. 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
To figure out what’s driving it, we introduced a control condition. In this control condition, participants complete the picture description task with a divider in between them and the confederate. Because they have absolutely no visual cues from the confederate, behavioral mimicry cannot occur.
Participants are randomly assigned to the mimicry condition, antimimicry condition, or the divider condition.
Following this, they are put in a separate room and told that they are going to complete a taste perception test. ……

48. Eating Cookies Dalton et al. (under review)
ON the Y axis is cookie consumption, so higher numbers indicate poorer self control.
We replicated the results of the previous study: participants in the mimicry condition showed better self regulation than participants in the antimimicry condition by eating fewer cookies in the taste test.
If mimicry is building peoples’ resources, then the control condition will look like the antimimicry condition. There will be no cost to having antimimicry compared to having no behavioral cues.
On the other hand..
If antimimicry is depleting peoples’ resources, then the control condition will look like the mimicry condition. Being mimicked will have no benefit over having no mimicry – it will be the presence of poorly coordinated mimicry that hurts performance.
Dalton et al. (under review)

49. Eating Cookies Dalton et al. (under review)
The results of the control condition strongly suggest that the difference in self regulation between the mimicked and antimimicked participants is being driven by a depleting effect of antimimicry rather than a replenishing effect of mimicry.
___________________________________________________________________________________________
Total participants = 30
Mimicry effect = F(1, 28) = 5.23, p < .05.
Contrasts:
Control vs. antimimic = .03
Mimic vs. antimimic = .07
Dalton et al. (under review)

50. 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?
mimicry is so pervasive a strategy in the effective coordination of social interactions that its absence is significantly disruptive and costly to self-regulation.
____________________________________________________________________________________
Did we use the right control condition?
Shockley, Santana & Fowler (2003).
So far we’ve assumed that mimicry means good coordination. But what if a category of social interaction has evolved in such a way that coordination entails a different set of underlying behaviors? What if a social interaction is typically characterized by antimimicry? In these interactions, we would predict a reversal in the effect of mimicry versus antimimicry on regulatory depletion, whereby the presence of mimicry rather than antimimicry would be disruptive and therefore costly to self regulation.
One category of social interactions where mimicry might not be the norm is cross-race interactions. A substantial empirical literature suggests that cross-race and same-race interactions are characterized by a number of subtle but pervasive differences in nonverbal behaviors, including eye contact, standing distance, smiling, and blinking (a sign of negative arousal and tension)
We speculated that mimicry might also differ in cross race vs. same race interactions. If mimicry is not the norm for coordinating cross race interactions, then being mimicked in a cross race interaction should be highly depleting, and being antimimicked should preserve resources.
________________________________________________________________________________________
Richeson and Shelton (2003) looked specifically at differences in body movements and gestures in cross-race and same-race interactions and reported that White participants moved their bodies and hands less and looked around the room less when interacting with a Black experimenter compared to a White experimenter, regardless of participants’ racist tendencies. Although not conceptualized as mimicry, Richeson and Shelton’s results provide a stunning indication that spontaneous behavioral mimicry is probably quite modest in cross-race interactions.

51. 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
we followed Richeson & Shelton (2003) and used response times to the series of Xs as individual baseline response time in the Stroop Task. We then subtracted reaction times for control trials from reaction times for mismatched trials to yield a measure called Stroop interference,
Individuals would also differ in the speed at which they can respond to all stimulus types. To control for this variation, we used response times to the series of Xs as individual baseline response time in the Stroop Task. We then subtracted reaction times for control trials from reaction times for mismatched trials to yield a measure called Stroop interference.

52. Stroop Interference
Dalton et al. (under review)

53. Stroop Interference Dalton et al. (under review)
As we predicted, we found a reversal of the effect when we looked at cross race interactions. In cross race interactions, it is mimicry that disrupts self regulation and antimimicry that keeps self regulation intact.
_______________________________________________________________________________________
Total participants = 41
Interaction: F(1, 36) = 15.57, p < .001.
Contrasts:
Whites in mimicry vs. antimimicry: F(1, 36) = 4.02, p < .05;
Nonwhites in mimicry vs. antimimicry: F(1, 36) = 12.05, p < .001
Dalton et al. (under review)

54. 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)

55. Performance on signal detection task
Discrimination index (d’)
Note: pattern holds for first 2 minutes of task

56. Mimicry is important for…
Liking and rapport*
Affiliation goals*
Pro-social orientation*
Persuasion
Cognitive processing style
Mood
Self-regulation*

57. Agenda
What do we mimic?
Why is mimicry important?
Why do we mimic?

58. 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

59. 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