This study examined the role that
self-monitoring plays in behavioral mimicry.
Participants were exposed to videotaped targets
who were laughing, yawning, frowning, or
neutral in their expression. Participants'
behavioral mimicry while viewing the targets was
recorded. It was hypothesized that higher
self-monitors would show greater mimicry than
lower self-monitors. It was also hypothesized
that participants would respond differently to
positive and negative target expressions.
Participants who scored higher in
self-monitoring did mimic the targets'
behaviors more often, and participants showed
less mimicry of frowns than of laughs or
yawns.
1. Introduction
While engrossed in conversation, do you find
yourself yawning because your
conversational partner yawns? Smiling because
they're smiling? Or perhaps frowning because
they're frowning? If so, have you ever thought
it odd that you seemed to "catch" the other
person's behavior? Are some people more prone to
this phenomenon than others? Do we mimic
yawning the same way we mimic other
expressive behaviors, or does yawning
mimicry perhaps follow a different pattern? One
way to explore this phenomenon is to examine the
relationship between individual differences and
mimicry of different types of expressive
behaviors, including yawning, that convey
different states to one's communication
partner.
Researchers have demonstrated that mimicry
plays an important role in social interactions
(van Baaren, Holland, Kawakami, & van
Knippenberg, 2004), that it is often quite
automatic and effortless (Chartrand, Maddux,
& Lakin, 2005), and that it can be observed
even in very small children (de Oliveira &
Krause, 1989). These findings indicate that
mimicry behaviors are some of the most basic
examples of humans' behaving in response to
information present in their environment. The
fact that young children are capable of
mimicking so readily suggests that these
behaviors are outside of conscious control and
may be "hard-wired" in the human brain.
Although adults often mimic spontaneously,
there is evidence that they are rarely aware
that they are doing so (Chartrand et al., 2005).
In other words, performing the same behaviors as
those with whom we are interacting appears to be
a natural and easy task. As Chartrand and
colleagues (2005) write, "Mimicry is a
manifestation of the perception-behavior link at
its most fundamental level. It is no more than
copying another's observables and requires only
the ability to perceive the behavior in the
other person and the ability to form the
behavior oneself" (p. 335). For instance, when
hearing background laughter during a television
program, viewers tend to laugh in response even
if they know the laughter is "canned" (Provine,
2000).
Why might we be so readily predisposed to
perform mimicry? Some writers argue that mimicry
is both adaptive and functional insofar as it
enhances affiliation and creates social bonds
(Chartrand et al., 2005; Lakin & Chartrand,
2003). Evidence exists that mimicry leads to
improved interpersonal rapport (and vice versa)
(Chartrand & Bargh, 1999), and that it
increases when affiliation goals are primed
(Lakin & Chartrand, 2003). Presumably, the
more concerned one is with smooth and positive
social interactions, the more likely one will
be, perhaps even outside of one's awareness, to
mimic the behavior of one's interactional
partners.
Clearly, before a behavior can be "caught,"
it must first be perceived. Early work examining
this issue supports the idea that individuals
differ in their perceptual selection and
sensitivity depending on their interests, needs,
and values (Goldstein, 1962; Haigh & Fiske,
1952; Postman, Bruner, & McGinnies, 1948).
More recently, there is evidence that
perspective-taking ability (Chartrand &
Bargh, 1999) and an interdependent
self-construal, or how important one views one's
relationships with others to be (van Baaren,
Maddux, Chartrand, de Bouter, & van
Knippenberg, 2003), are both linked to mimicry
behaviors. Selfmonitoring is another
well-studied individual difference that has
effectively predicted how people behave during
social interactions, and because behavioral
mimicry must, by definition, involve some degree
of social interaction, self-monitoring is an
attractive candidate to be examined in
conjunction with mimicry behavior.
Self-monitoring is defined as the degree to
which one is attuned to the way one presents
oneself in social situations and the degree to
which one adjusts one's performance to create a
desired impression (Ickes & Barnes, 1977;
Lennox & Wolfe, 1984; Snyder, 1974).
Individuals scoring high in self-monitoring
better perceive socially-relevant stimuli than
their low self-monitoring counterparts
(Baumeister & Twenge, 2003). These studies
indicate that high self-monitors use the
information present in their social environment
to adjust their self-presentation. A variety of
behaviors and speech techniques can be used to
adjust one's self-presentation in different
social situations, but one simple means of
adjusting self-presentation is to copy the
behavior of others.
Although we all can and do easily mimic
others (Chartrand et al., 2005), high
self-monitors may be even more likely to mimic
than low self-monitors because, by definition,
they reliably adapt their behavior for
self-presentational purposes (Baumeister &
Twenge, 2003; Lennox & Wolfe, 1984; Snyder,
1974). In addition, they are more concerned with
having positive social interactions than low
self-monitors (Ickes, Holloway, Stinson, &
Hoodenpyle, in press). Thus, if mimicry provides
a means to positively adjust one's
self-presentation or serves a rapport-building
function during social interactions (Chartrand
& Bargh, 1999; Lakin, Jefferis, Cheng, &
Chartrand, 2003; Lakin & Chartrand, 2003),
one would expect that high self-monitors would
display increased rates of mimicry. Perhaps
mimicry shifts from a simple, automatic
stimulus-response process to a motivated and
controlled rapportbuilding process as one moves
from low to high along the self-monitoring
spectrum (Ickes et al., in press).
Although the evidence is strong that people
easily mimic the behaviors of others, we also
examined whether they mimic social information
differing in emotional valence with equal
frequency. There is a great deal of evidence,
from research using a variety of methods and
approaches, that negative stimuli have a greater
impact and draw more attention than positive
stimuli (Fiske, 1980; Pratto & Bargh, 1991;
Skowronski & Carlston, 1989; Smith,
Cacioppo, Larsen, & Chartrand, 2003; Vrana
& Gross, 2004). When it comes to processes
like impression formation and person perception,
negative information yields disproportionate
power. If enhanced perception leads to increased
mimicry and we have enhanced perception of
negative cues, we might expect greater mimicry
of negative behaviors. On the other hand, if
mimicry is performed primarily to build rapport,
displaying negative behaviors would run counter
to that goal, and therefore one might predict
more mimicry of positive behaviors regardless of
attention.
These two theoretical positions are clearly
at odds with each other, but it should be
possible to test these contrasting positions
using self-monitoring as a starting point. There
is evidence that high self-monitors on the whole
are highly motivated to display positive affect
and are concerned with maintaining smooth social
interactions (Ickes et al., in press). In other
words, they are "motivated impression managers"
(Ickes et al., in press). But selfmonitoring is
comprised of several different dimensions,
including ability to modify selfpresentation
("Ability"), or how facile one is at adjusting
"performance," and Sensitivity to the expressive
behaviors of others ("Sensitivity"), or how well
one can "read" others (Lennox & Wolfe,
1984). Presumably, if there is a positive
relationship between the Ability factor and
mimicry, we would expect to find more mimicry of
positive behaviors relative to negative
behaviors because this would serve a
rapport-building purpose. However, if there is a
positive relationship between the Sensitivity
factor and mimicry, an "enhanced perception"
explanation might suffice, and one would expect
to find more mimicry of negative behaviors
because they are more salient than positive
behaviors.
The present study was designed to examine
the relationship between self-monitoring and the
mimicry of facial behaviors conveying states of
differing valence. In this study, we predicted
that all participants would mimic to some
extent. Those scoring higher in selfmonitoring
were predicted to mimic more frequently overall
than those with lower selfmonitoring scores.
Differences were also expected to depend on the
valence of the targets' expressed state. If
negative stimuli receive more attention and
heightened attention leads to greater mimicking,
participants should mimic frowns more than
laughs or yawns, particularly those participants
scoring higher in Sensitivity. This pattern of
results would support a perceptual salience
explanation. On the other hand, if the
rapport-building purpose of mimicry is
paramount, participants should mimic laughs more
than frowns or yawns, particularly those who
score high in Ability. This pattern of results
would support a rapportbuilding
explanation.
4. Discussion
Given the unconscious and automatic nature
of mimicry, it is not surprising that our
participants showed mimicry behaviors in all of
our expression conditions. What is interesting,
however, is that the pattern of effects was
moderated by self-monitoring and the nature of
the target behaviors themselves. As predicted,
those higher in self-monitoring showed greater
mimicry when compared to those who scored lower
in self-monitoring.
Research findings demonstrate that increased
perception of a stimulus serves to increase the
likelihood that one will unconsciously mimic the
perceived stimulus (Chartrand & Bargh,
1999). Therefore one explanation for the
high-self-monitors' increased mimicry is the
greater sensitivity to social cues that are part
and parcel of being a high self-monitor
(Baumeister & Twenge, 2003; Lennox &
Wolfe, 1984; Snyder, 1974). In this sense,
enhanced perception of the target behavior
increases the likelihood that participants would
unconsciously mimic the perceived stimulus
(Chartrand & Bargh, 1999). Note, however,
that a strictly attention-based account would
predict that frowns would be mimicked more than
laughs or yawns, because negatively-valenced
expressions should be more salient than either
positive or neutral ones.
This reasoning leads us to consider the
strong effects we found for the different types
of expressions that were modeled. Although there
is ample evidence that people pay
disproportionate attention to negative social
information (Fiske, 1980; Pratto & Bargh,
1991; Skowronski & Cariston, 1989; Smith et
al., 2003; Vrana & Gross, 2004) and
increased perception generally leads to greater
mimicry (Chartrand & Bargh, 1999), our
findings indicate that participants mimicked
frowns less than both yawns and laughs,
supporting a rapport-building explanation rather
than an enhanced perception explanation. In
other words, if mimicry is primarily for
building rapport (Lakin & Chartrand, 2003),
this relationship should be moderated by the
negativity of the target behavior. Frowning at
someone would presumably make rapport-building
less likely. Therefore, it appears likely that
our participants were dealing with competing
motivations: to mimic in order to build rapport
but to avoid frowning which might jeopardize
said rapport. 6 The fact that participants
scoring higher in Sensitivity also mimicked
frowns less further supports this
explanation.
The fact that those participants who scored
relatively high on the Ability subscale showed
increased mimicry of both laughing and
yawning suggests some form of strategic
control. The fact that Sensitivity was unrelated
to laughter mimicry further suggests some sort
of strategic behavior. It is possible that
individuals with an enhanced ability to modify
how they present themselves may be more
consciously motivated to display a
rapportbuilding expression like laughter or
smiling, while inhibiting a negative expression
like frowning. Those without this ability would
be expected to be, and per our findings actually
were, less likely to mimic laughter or
frowning.
Although our 7-s video clips of targets
likely reduced participant boredom, it is not
clear whether increased exposure or more
interactions would have strengthened the
observed effects. Longer exposure might increase
the amount of empathy felt towards a target,
which has been shown to be positively correlated
with contagious yawning (Platek, Critton,
Myers, & Gallup, 2003). However, some might
argue that having participants watch video clips
of targets hardly constitutes a social
interaction. Therefore, additional research
should be conducted using a more interactive
design, perhaps involving trained confederates
displaying differing facial expressions rather
than videotaped targets. Still, given the strong
relationship between behavioral mimicry and
self-monitoring in the present study despite
brief exposure times and non-interactive, silent
video displays, it is expected that increased
exposure or more authentic interactions would
only strengthen the kinds of effects that we
have reported.
The present study reaffirms the frequent
occurrence of behavioral mimicry while also
providing additional evidence that individual
differences, those related to different aspects
of self-monitoring, may play a role in one's
likelihood of mimicking another person's
behaviors. The present findings also indicate
that not all behaviors are equally likely to be
mimicked. Perhaps both mimicry and
self-monitoring are not as effortless and
automatic as was once believed, but can be
consciously directed processes that help us
achieve our social interaction goals (Ickes et
al., in press).
