TY - JOUR

T1 - Social group membership does not modulate automatic imitation in a contrastive multi-agent paradigm

AU - De Souter, Laura

AU - Braem, Senne

AU - Genschow, Oliver

AU - Brass, Marcel

AU - Cracco, Emiel

N1 - Publisher Copyright: © Experimental Psychology Society 2021.

PY - 2021/4

Y1 - 2021/4

N2 - A key prediction of motivational theories of automatic imitation is that people imitate in-group over out-group members. However, research on this topic has provided mixed results. Here, we investigate the possibility that social group modulations emerge only when people can directly compare in- and out-group. To this end, we conducted three experiments in which we measured automatic imitation of two simultaneously shown hands: one in-group and one out-group hand. Our general hypothesis was that the in-group hand would be imitated more than the out-group hand. However, even though both explicit and implicit manipulation checks showed that we succeeded in manipulating participants’ feelings of group membership, we did not find support for the predicted influence of group membership on automatic imitation. In contrast to motivational theories, this suggests that group membership does not influence who we do or do not imitate, not even in a contrastive multi-agent paradigm.

AB - A key prediction of motivational theories of automatic imitation is that people imitate in-group over out-group members. However, research on this topic has provided mixed results. Here, we investigate the possibility that social group modulations emerge only when people can directly compare in- and out-group. To this end, we conducted three experiments in which we measured automatic imitation of two simultaneously shown hands: one in-group and one out-group hand. Our general hypothesis was that the in-group hand would be imitated more than the out-group hand. However, even though both explicit and implicit manipulation checks showed that we succeeded in manipulating participants’ feelings of group membership, we did not find support for the predicted influence of group membership on automatic imitation. In contrast to motivational theories, this suggests that group membership does not influence who we do or do not imitate, not even in a contrastive multi-agent paradigm.

KW - Automatic imitation

KW - in-group

KW - multiple agents

KW - out-group

KW - Business psychology

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85104226514&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1177/1747021820986528

DO - 10.1177/1747021820986528

M3 - Journal articles

C2 - 33427078

AN - SCOPUS:85104226514

VL - 74

SP - 746

EP - 759

JO - Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology

JF - Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology

SN - 1747-0218

IS - 4

ER -