Status and Power Do Not Modulate Automatic Imitation of Intransitive Hand Movements.
The tendency to mimic the behaviour of others is affected by a variety of social factors, and it has been argued that such "mirroring" is often unconsciously deployed as a means of increasing affiliation during interpersonal interactions. However, the relationship between automatic motor imitation and status/power is currently unclear. This paper reports five experiments that investigated whether social status (Experiments 1, 2, and 3) or power (Experiments 4 and 5) had a moderating effect on automatic imitation (AI) in finger-movement tasks, using a series of different manipulations. Experiments 1 and 2 manipulated the social status of the observed person using an associative learning task. Experiment 3 manipulated social status via perceived competence at a simple computer game. Experiment 4 manipulated participants' power (relative to the actors) in a card-choosing task. Finally, Experiment 5 primed participants using a writing task, to induce the sense of being powerful or powerless. No significant interactions were found between congruency and social status/power in any of the studies. Additionally, Bayesian hypothesis testing indicated that the null hypothesis should be favoured over the experimental hypothesis in all five studies. These findings are discussed in terms of their implications for AI tasks, social effects on mimicry, and the hypothesis of mimicry as a strategic mechanism to promote affiliation.
Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, University College London, 17 Queen Square, London, WC1N 3AR, United Kingdom.
Harry
H
Farmer
Department of Psychology, University of California, San Diego, 9500 Gilman Drive, 0109 La Jolla, CA 92093-0109, United States of America.
Evan W
EW
Carr
Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, University College London, 17 Queen Square, London, WC1N 3AR, United Kingdom.
Marita
M
Svartdal
Department of Psychology, University of California, San Diego, 9500 Gilman Drive, 0109 La Jolla, CA 92093-0109, United States of America.|Behavioural Science Group, Warwick Business School, The University of Warwick, Coventry, CV4 7AL, United Kingdom.|Department of Psychology, SWPS University of Social Sciences and Humanities, ul. Chodakowska 19/31, 03-815, Warsaw, Poland.
Piotr
P
Winkielman
Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, University College London, 17 Queen Square, London, WC1N 3AR, United Kingdom.
Antonia F de C
AF
Hamilton
D001288:Attention / Q000502:physiology; D001332:Automatism; D005260:Female; D005385:Fingers / Q000502:physiology; D006608:Hierarchy, Social; D006801:Humans; D007100:Imitative Behavior / Q000502:physiology*; D007858:Learning; D008297:Male; D011597:Psychomotor Performance / Q000502:physiology*; D011930:Reaction Time / Q000502:physiology*; D013647:Task Performance and Analysis