Beyond the Perception-Behavior Link: The Ubiquitous Utility and Motivational Moderators of Nonconscious Mimicry
نویسندگان
چکیده
We live in a social world, which necessitates interacting with a wide variety of people on a regular basis. Our contact with loved ones, friends, colleagues, neighbors, and strangers often influences what we say, feel, think, and do. This is neither surprising nor controversial; one can easily visualize ways in which we emotionally, cognitively, and behaviorally respond to the presence of others in social environments. While many of these influences are obvious, less obvious is the notion that the mere act of perceiving another person can have direct, unmediated effects on our behavior. Perception and behavior are inextricably intertwined such that people automatically behave as they perceive. This "perception-behavior link" refers to the unintentional, nonconscious effects of social perception on social behavior. Several consequences arise from the close link between perception and behavior. When we perceive the behaviors of others, we may proceed to unconsciously copy or mimic those behaviors. That is, perceiving observable aspects of others (e.g., their expressions, postures, behaviors) activates the associated representations in memory, which in turn makes us more likely to do the same. In addition to activating behavioral representations, perceiving these "observables" (Dijksterhuis & Bargh, 2001) may also lead to spontaneous trait inferences Thus, the perception of observables may activate specific behavioral representations, trait
منابع مشابه
Using nonconscious behavioral mimicry to create affiliation and rapport.
Nonconscious behavioral mimicry occurs when a person unwittingly imitates the behaviors of another person. This mimicry has been attributed to a direct link between perceiving a behavior and performing that same behavior. The current experiments explored whether having a goal to affiliate augments the tendency to mimic the behaviors of interaction partners. Experiment 1 demonstrated that having...
متن کاملThe 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...
متن کاملThe Chameleon Effect as Social Glue: Evidence for the Evolutionary Significance of Nonconscious Mimicry
The “chameleon effect” refers to the tendency to adopt the postures, gestures, and mannerisms of interaction partners (Chartrand & Bargh, 1999). This type of mimicry occurs outside of conscious awareness, and without any intent to mimic or imitate. Empirical evidence suggests a bi-directional relationship between nonconscious mimicry on the one hand, and liking, rapport, and affiliation on the ...
متن کاملEvidence for nonconscious behavior-copying in young children
Behavioral mimicry is the nonconscious copying of an interaction partner’s behavior and is affected by social dynamics. Whereas it has been studied extensively in adults, little is known about the development of mimicry. The aims of this study were twofold, first to identify whether young children demonstrate mimicry and, second, to investigate whether young children’s mimicry displays sensitiv...
متن کامل