Observed mimicry and perceived dominance

Past research has shown that mimicry has a number of pro-social consequences for interaction partners. However, such research has almost exclusively focused on its effects among interaction dyads. As social interactions are often witnessed by third-party observers, the question arises which inferences perceivers draw from observing mimicry. In the present work, we apply a third-party perspective to mimicry and test whether observers perceive mimicking individuals as submissive. Experiment 1 confirmed our prediction and found that observers perceived a mimicking person as less dominant, and thus more submissive, than a mimicked person. Experiment 2 replicated this finding and ruled out possible demand effects. Experiment 3 showed that when an interaction partner does not mimic the movements initiated by another person, the interaction partner gains dominance in the eye of the observer. Experiment 4 demonstrates that the inferences that perceivers draw from observing mimicry partly rely on a mere action-response pattern. These findings have not only important implications for mimicry as a genuinely social phenomenon, but also for research on impression management and person perception.

既往研究表明，模仿对互动伙伴具有诸多积极的社会影响。然而，此类研究几乎无一例外地集中于其作用于互动双方的效果。鉴于社会互动往往被第三方观察者所目睹，因此产生了一个问题：观察者从观察模仿行为中得出何种推断。在本研究中，我们采用第三方视角对模仿行为进行研究，并检验观察者是否将模仿者视为顺从。实验1证实了我们的预测，发现观察者认为模仿者相较于被模仿者，具有较低的主导性，因而更加顺从。实验2重复了这一发现，并排除了可能的期望效应。实验3表明，当互动伙伴未对另一人的发起动作进行模仿时，在观察者眼中，该互动伙伴获得了主导地位。实验4展示了观察者从观察模仿行为中得出的推断部分依赖于简单的动作-反应模式。这些发现不仅对模仿这一真实社会现象具有重要意义，也对印象管理和人格感知的研究领域产生了深远影响。