The spillover effect of mimicry: Being mimicked by one person increases prosocial behavior toward another person

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Authors

People have the automatic tendency to mimic their interaction partners. Mimicry theories propose that such mimicking behavior is beneficial for the mimicker as mimicked persons tend to like, trust and help the mimicker more. Yet an open question remains as to whether prosocial effects translate to parties other than the mimicker. To test for the presence of such a spillover effect, we ran two field experiments (total N = 460). In all experiments, participants interacted with an experimenter. The experimenter either verbally mimicked the participants or behaved naturally. Afterwards, either the experimenter or another person asked participants to donate to a charity. Across all experiments, our results indicate that irrespective of whether a donation request is made by the mimicker or another person, mimicry increases the likelihood to donate to a charity, but not the amount that participants are willing to donate. Bayesian analyses suggest that this effect is less strongly pronounced than assumed by previous research and theories.
Original languageEnglish
Article number104620
JournalJournal of Experimental Social Psychology
Volume113
Number of pages12
ISSN0022-1031
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 01.07.2024

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2024 Elsevier Inc.

    Research areas

  • Verbal mimicry, Nonverbal mimicry, Imitation, The chameleon effect, Spillover effect of mimicry, Prosocial behavior, Charity donation, Field study, Social influence
  • Psychology

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