Mimicry and automatic imitation are not correlated
Research output: Journal contributions › Journal articles › Research › peer-review
Standard
In: PLoS ONE, Vol. 12, No. 9, e0183784, 06.09.2017.
Research output: Journal contributions › Journal articles › Research › peer-review
Harvard
APA
Vancouver
Bibtex
}
RIS
TY - JOUR
T1 - Mimicry and automatic imitation are not correlated
AU - Genschow, Oliver
AU - Van Den Bossche, Sofie
AU - Cracco, Emiel
AU - Bardi, Lara
AU - Rigoni, Davide
AU - Brass, Marcel
N1 - Publisher Copyright: © 2017 Genschow et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
PY - 2017/9/6
Y1 - 2017/9/6
N2 - It is widely known that individuals have a tendency to imitate each other. However, different psychological disciplines assess imitation in different manners. While social psychologists assess mimicry by means of action observation, cognitive psychologists assess automatic imitation with reaction time based measures on a trial-by-trial basis. Although these methods differ in crucial methodological aspects, both phenomena are assumed to rely on similar underlying mechanisms. This raises the fundamental question whether mimicry and automatic imitation are actually correlated. In the present research we assessed both phenomena and did not find a meaningful correlation. Moreover, personality traits such as empathy, autism traits, and traits related to self- versus other-focus did not correlate with mimicry or automatic imitation either. Theoretical implications are discussed.
AB - It is widely known that individuals have a tendency to imitate each other. However, different psychological disciplines assess imitation in different manners. While social psychologists assess mimicry by means of action observation, cognitive psychologists assess automatic imitation with reaction time based measures on a trial-by-trial basis. Although these methods differ in crucial methodological aspects, both phenomena are assumed to rely on similar underlying mechanisms. This raises the fundamental question whether mimicry and automatic imitation are actually correlated. In the present research we assessed both phenomena and did not find a meaningful correlation. Moreover, personality traits such as empathy, autism traits, and traits related to self- versus other-focus did not correlate with mimicry or automatic imitation either. Theoretical implications are discussed.
KW - Business psychology
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85028967353&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1371/journal.pone.0183784
DO - 10.1371/journal.pone.0183784
M3 - Journal articles
C2 - 28877197
AN - SCOPUS:85028967353
VL - 12
JO - PLoS ONE
JF - PLoS ONE
SN - 1932-6203
IS - 9
M1 - e0183784
ER -