Hitting is male, giving is female: automatic imitation and complementarity during action observation.
Is somebody going to hurt us? We draw back. The present study investigates using behavioral measures the interplay between imitative and complementary actions activated while observing female/male hands performing different actions. Female and male participants were required to discriminate the gender of biologically and artificially colored hands that displayed both individual (grasping) and social (giving and punching) actions. Biological hands evoked automatic imitation, while hands of different gender activated complementary mechanisms. Furthermore, responses reflected gender stereotypes: giving actions were more associated to females, punching actions to males. Results have implications for studies on social stereotyping, and for research on action observation, showing that the mirror neuron system resonates in both an imitative and complementary fashion.
Department of Philosophy and Communication, University of Bologna, via Azzo Gardino 23, 40122, Bologna, Italy. l.lugli@unibo.it.
Luisa
http://orcid.org/0000-0003-1770-2327
L
Lugli
Department of Philosophy and Communication, University of Bologna, via Azzo Gardino 23, 40122, Bologna, Italy.
Anna Chiara
AC
Obertis
Department of Psychology, University of Bologna, viale Berti Pichat, 5, 40127, Bologna, Italy.|Institute of Cognitive Sciences and Technologies, Italian National Research Council, via S. Martino della Battaglia, 44, 00185, Rome, Italy.
Anna M
AM
Borghi
D000328:Adult; D005260:Female; D018737:Hand Strength / Q000502:physiology*; D006801:Humans; D007100:Imitative Behavior / Q000502:physiology*; D008297:Male; D059167:Mirror Neurons / Q000502:physiology*; D011597:Psychomotor Performance / Q000502:physiology*; D011930:Reaction Time / Q000502:physiology*; D012737:Sex Factors; D013239:Stereotyped Behavior / Q000502:physiology*; D055815:Young Adult
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