Imagine: Unconscious Mimicry and a Free & Equal World

Imagine: Unconscious Mimicry and Social Communication

IMAGINE: Unconscious Mimicry and Social Communication

Tammy Dalley and Michal WillingerInterdisciplinary Center, Herzliya

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Imagine there’s no heavenIt’s easy if you tryNo hell below usAbove us only sky

Imagine all the peopleLiving for today

Imagine there’s no countriesIt isn’t hard to doNothing to kill or die forAnd no religion, too

Imagine all the peopleLiving life in peace

You, you may say I’m a dreamerBut I’m not the only oneI hope someday you will join usAnd the world will be as one

Imagine no possessionsI wonder if you canNo need for greed or hungerA brotherhood of man

Imagine all the peopleSharing all the world

You, you may say I’m a dreamerBut I’m not the only oneI hope someday you will join usAnd the world will live as one

– John Lennon (1940 – 1980)

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ABSTRACT

Unconscious mimicry is a phenomenon that involves unaware “copycatting”

of an interaction partner in behavior such as vocal tone, word choice, gesture and

body movements. Studies suggest (van Baaren, 2003; van Baaren, 2004, van Baaren

2009) that unconscious mimicry shares common moderators with empathy as well as

enhancing prosocial behavior such as generosity toward others and likeability of the

“copycat” interaction partner. This review focuses on the known moderators of

unconscious mimicry to reveal deeper individual, social and anatomical connections

between unconscious mimicry and prosocial behaviour, addressing specifically how

this phenomenon may play a role in the supported and necessary and sufficient

conditions of personality change (Rogers, 1992). Through the existence of the five

unconscious moderators (in-group/out-group, affiliation goal, attention, self-construal

and field dependence), the finding of this review suggest that the individual self and

the social self are necessarily regulated into patterns of stability and prosociality under

the unifying condition of unconditional positive regard, a term coined by psychologist

Carl Rogers whose definition requires the existence of the five moderators of

unconscious mimicry, thus providing a basis to understand why empathy, generosity

and prosociality are moderated by the same variables. Briefly we review the

anatomical basis for such regulation and its implication for conscious control of

perceptions of self and other (Porges, 1995; 1998; 2005). This review also

specifically addresses the implications of raising these unconscious moderators into

consciousness, thus beginning a person’s intentional quest toward common goals,

prosocial communication and a positive, integrated notion of self without limitations

of stereotype or identification.

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Research Question

Carl Rogers writes in one of his more recent papers (Rogers, 1992) about the

environmental conditions necessary for deep changes in personality – holding that

every person is unique and able to become better, and that no behaviour or cycle is

necessarily fixed. The conditions are as follows:

1. Two people in psychological contact.

2. One, presumably the client, in a state of incongruence, being vulnerable, or

anxious.

3. The therapist experiences unconditional positive regard for the client.

4. The therapist experiences empathic understanding for the client’s internal

frame of reference and endeavours to communicate this experience to the

client.

5. This communication is to the minimal degree necessary.

We seek to unify and explain how deep personality change serves as a mirror

to deep societal change, how empathy, unconscious mimicry, and positive

unconditional regard are the fertile soil in which this change takes place, and to

provide concise anatomical explanations in the human being for mechanisms

underlying these phenomena.

Unconscious mimicry is a subconscious process that has been shown to

facilitate positive self-regard, feelings of affinity toward the “copycat”, and increased

understanding of similarities of the self to other people and objects (Van Baaren et al,

2009). Mimicry can refer to vocal intonation, movement and gesture, facial

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expression and other subliminal ways in which a person may copy another under the

threshold of conscious awareness. Curiously, identical variables that moderate the

facilitation of unconscious mimicry also facilitate empathy (Van Baaren et al, 2009).

Drawing a link between mimicry, empathy, and the effects of being “copied,” we

followed the path illuminated by this connection to the therapeutic work by Carl

Rogers, who described how an empathic and positive ‘mimicking,’ with the least

amount of communication necessary to maintain both a positive regard and an

empathic stance, is able to dissolve barriers of Self within the client, which block

desired deep personality change (Rogers, 1995).

Literature Review

In-group/Out-group

Among humans, there exists an intrinsic motivation for social inclusion (being

in the “in-group”), attaining of which is necessary for optimal mental health. Research

has revealed the unwanted psychological, behavioural and emotional effects of social

exclusion (being in the “out-group”). In order to be in the in-group, research has

found people to (unconsciously) mimic their interaction partner. Thus, mimicry can

be viewed as an “adaptive response to social exclusion” (Lakin & Chartrand, 2005).

Additionally, it was revealed that people are significantly more likely to

unconsciously mimic an in-group confederate than an out-group confederate (Lakin,

Chartrand & Arkin, 2008). It is therefore evident that a person selectively mimics the

behaviour of those individuals capable of restoring their status within the in-group

(Lakin, Chartrand & Arkin, 2008). Theories exist suggesting that instead of human

tendencies to mimic in-group members being as a result of an innate tendency, there

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is the possibility that these in-group biases are a result of racial prejudice as learned

through culture (Chiao & Mathur, 2010).

Human empathic capacity is vastly limited by many social factors, one of

which being group membership (in-group/out-group). Individual likelihood to mimic

others is closely dependent on ones own level of culturally-learned internal prejudice

(Yabar, Johnson, Miles & Peace 2006). Interestingly, the reverse has been found,

demonstrating the plasticity of this – namely, that mimicking out-group members can

actually counteract the learned cultural values, and thus decrease prejudice and

implicit bias (Inzlicht, Gutsell & Legault, 2011). This same study expanded this

finding to conclude that simply mimicking a very limited number of individuals in an

out-group decreased prejudice to the out-group as a whole, inclusive of all members.

Thus, increasing in-group membership among individuals could have detrimental

effects on society as a whole. Identifying with the out-group, thus becoming closer to

becoming in-group interaction partners, was shown to reduce prejudices. More

concretely, it has been shown specifically that mimicking the out-group can reduce

prejudice (Inzlicht, Gutsell & Legault, 2011).

A person is motivated to be part of an in-group, simply because it is important

to feel a sense of belongingness (Baumeister & Leary, 1995) and it is threatening to

feel excluded, as part of the out-group (Williams, 2007).

Neuroscience studies have revealed that although humans have a natural

tendency to be empathic, it is less likely to empathize with a member of the out-group

than the in-group (De Waal, 2008; Decety & Jackson, 2004). For instance, in a study

by Gutsell and Inzlicht (2010), electroencephalographic (EEG) recordings in the

motor cortex revealed that white participants who watched white people perform an

action generated a significant amount of motor activity, however none when

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observing the same behaviours by blacks or south Asians. In addition, there is the

finding that the neural areas involved in pain are less active when participants

observed pain felt by out-group members as compared to pain felt by in-group

members (Avenanti, Sirigu, & Aglioti, 2010; Xu, Zuo, Wang, & Han, 2009).

Affiliation goal

According to Lakin & Chartrand (2003), a person who desires to identify with

his interaction partner and pay him attention is more likely to mimic him. This is not

dependent on whether the identification process is conscious or unconscious, that is

whether the person was told to identify and pay attention to his interaction partner, or

whether he was primed with affiliation-related words such as partner or team.

Furthermore, one who mimics another is more likely to empathize with his situation

and therefore behave prosocially toward him (Lakin & Chartrand, 2003).

The “chameleon effect” holds that people unconsciously mimic their

interaction partner’s mannerisms, postures and gestures (Chartrand & Bargh, 1999).

Research suggests that as affiliation goals increase, so does social mimicry, which

actually fosters relationships (Lakin, Jefferis, Cheng & Chartrand, 2003).

Specifically, in relation to affiliation goals’ connection to social interactions, is the

concept of rapport. Rapport describes the interaction of two people who share similar

patterns of thought, and as a result are in sync and feel as though they relate to one

another (Lakin, Jefferis, Cheng & Chartrand, 2003). It has been suggested that

affiliation goals serve as a function to enable mimicry when a desire exists to create

rapport (Lakin & Chartrand, 2003).

The “chameleon effect” is necessary in the expression of empathy – it has

been found that those measured to be more empathetic are more likely to demonstrate

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the “chameleon effect,” which refers to changing behaviours to match the interaction

partner (Chartrand & Bargh, 1999).

People who like their interaction partners tend to mimic cheek muscles more

than other muscles of the face (McIntosh, 2006). Cheek muscles are innervated by

cranial nerve VII, which project directly to the gustatory centres of the insular cortex,

providing information about similarity of taste and the evaluation of tastes. Research

on moral purity found that the insular cortex is activated not only in the experience of

pleasant physical tastes, but also abstract notions and beliefs that are valued as

pleasant (Zhong & Liljenquist, 2006). Conscious or unconscious mimicry of cheek

muscles indicates that the brain is registering a similarity of the experience of taste,

abstracted or actual, and is therefore enhancing likeability of the interaction partner

based on similarity of attitude and experience.

Similarity of attitude and experience also increases rapport in the anatomical

sense of shared information relevant to goal-pursuit as revealed by eye contact

(Honma, Tanaka, Osada & Kuriyama, 2011). Pupil dilation between interaction

partners is increased only when the participant perceives eye contact is being met, as

opposed to an actual geometrical parallel between pupils. This evidence contributes

to a body of research suggesting that perception is intrinsically linked to the deciding

and implementation of goal-states. Lateralization studies suggest that brain areas

evolved to meet demands of moving the body through space, through inputs from the

left eye, and to identify and focus in on a target, through inputs from the right eye

(Andrew, Tommasi & Ford, 2000). Eye contact between interaction partners focus a

particular direction shown to be relevant to decisions in achieving goals; and by

deducing geometrical patterns, the belief of being regarded in the eyes, and

unconscious mimicry of an interaction partner with whom similar tastes (actual or

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abstracted) are shared, two individuals create overlapping models of goal-pursuit

(consciously or unconsciously) through syncopation of symbolic (i.e., language) or

environmental cues (Andrew et. al, 2000) (Honma et. al) (Lamb & Jablonka, 2005).

Attention

In the context of this seminar literature review, attention refers to a person’s

lack of obstructions in perceiving another person, thus affecting their level of

mimicry. This applies regardless of whether the mimicker is consciously aware of

their ability to see their interaction partner or whether they are oblivious to this fact.

They simply must be in view without obstruction.

Conscious awareness of mimicry does not need to be in conscious attention in

order to increase a person’s generosity, prosocial behavior, liking and lessening of

negative appraisals of out-group members (Cheng & Chartrand, 2003) (van Baaren et.

al, 2004) (Inzlicht, Gutsell & Legault, 2010). It is sufficient simply that the person is

in clear ability to perceive the phenomenon in his or her peripheral view. It is actually

better for the interaction to be subtle and outside of conscious awareness in order to

observe a main effect; extreme mimicry intrudes upon prosocial behavior, and in fact

elicits an offended and unhappy reaction, due to feelings of being mocked (van

Baaren, Janssen, Chartrand & Dijksterhuis, 2009). What is required is simply the

ability to perceive the stimulus and a minimum prime of 200-300 milliseconds in

order that it can be registered in the visual system (Cheng & Chartrand, 2004).

In social interaction, there is an unexpected interplay between attention and

mimicry. One aspect of attention, namely eye contact, was found to quickly stimulate

mimicry of hand movements in particular (Wang, Newport & Hamilton, 2010). These

variables play a significant role in the amiability of the interacting partners.

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Further studies are necessary to determine the anatomical components of

attention and mimicry. On the one hand, while prosocial effects of mimicry are

present with or without conscious awareness, the effect is entirely dependent on

peripheral visual attention. In studies where the participant was unable to see his or

her mimicker, prosocial effects were utterly absent (Cheng & Chartrand, 2003)(van

Baaren et. al, 2004).

Self-Construal

Self-construal refers to the extent to which people construe themselves to be

the same or different from the rest of the group. Referring only to construal within

the in-group, self-construal is ideally kept at balance between sameness and

difference; with too much of either extreme being cause for modified behaviour and

speech (van Baaren et. al, 2009). As with sameness or difference, extreme feelings

either of being unworthy or superior to the group will inhibit mimicry and its

associated prosociality (van Baaren et. al 2009).

Mimicry happens when a person desires affiliation with group members and

wants to appear as part of the in-group, as discussed in previous sections of this text.

Thus, self-construal as a moderator cannot exist entirely on its own. Rather, it is

required to prevent a person’s inhibition of what would otherwise be a situation in

which they would find themselves consciously or unconsciously mimicking others in

their in-group.

Self-construal can function at the individual level to moderate a person’s

emotional reactivity to situations and circumstances (Williams et. al, 2009). It

moderates a person’s ability to regulate himself in order to meet goals, and with

particular relevance to mimicry, regulates the capacity to behave in order to increase

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goals of affiliation with others rather than other available behavioural options such as

retreat or defence. Because self-construal tends to be an overall style, it can be

conscious (specific to the interaction partner) or unconscious (as a usual mode of

communication with others) (Van Baaren, 2009).

Self-construal is an important concept in the anatomical function of motor

control systems and mechanisms of motor control feedback because the notion of

sameness and difference in terms of brain science is the ability to construe the self as

an object that either merges or is distinctive from other objects (Ingram, Howard,

Flanagan & Wolpert, 2011). Whether the self is considered a component of an overall

function or a way of interacting with an environment, or whether it is considered a

distinct and separate element from the other components of perception, feedback to

the brain to helps make decisions about which motor actions (i.e., behaviour, tone of

speech and gesture) are necessary to achieve concordance with a person’s goals.

A person’s self-construed notion of himself being the same as the group

reduces the uncertainty of his motor actions to the extent that he can confidently

coordinate his behaviours with the others, completely outside of conscious control. In

a motor feedback study, Nagengast, Braun & Wolpert (2010) found that with

increased uncertainty comes increased prudence in adjusting motor behaviors to meet

the goals of a task and will become increasingly coordinated and smooth as

uncertainty is reduced. In addition, Orban & Wolpert (2011) found that smoothness

and coordination is a direct result of decreased certainty as determined by a Baynesian

model of statistical strategy of choice in neural circuitry. In other words, the further

one estimates himself to be construed outside of the group, the greater is his

uncertainty, the more prudent his behaviour and the more strangled and uncoordinated

his social interactions (Ingram et. al, 2011). The neural substrates involved in

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interpreting and initiating mimicry in the brain make no distinctions between objects

and actual persons – which is why in studies to date, the same mimicry effects can be

seen from still photographs of faces (McIntosh, 2006), from robotics trained to mimic

biological movements (Ingram, Howard, Flanagan & Wolpert, 2010), and machines

designed to coordinate with living participants to simulate the presence or assistance

of a person (Orban & Wolpert, 2011).

Field Dependence

Field dependence refers to a person’s predisposition to consider the

surrounding field of objects, people and how they are related. High field dependence

means that a person highly considers how the function of each object in his

environment interacts with other surrounding objects within his perceptual field.

Conversely, low field independence means that a person considers an object and its

function as separate from its context, taking little or no consideration of how it may fit

in or not fit in with his field of perception (van Baaren, Horgan, Chartrand &

Dijkmans, 2004).

In recent literature, context dependence replaced field dependence as the term

used to describe the overall phenomena beyond the aspect of vision alone (van Baaren

et. al, 2004). Visual field dependence is traditionally measured either by locating an

object embedded in many others. Relevant to cognition, field dependence has been

shown to relate to an overall style of context dependence, where a person sees the

interrelatedness between many objects in an environment or instead focuses on the

purpose and presence of each item separately. People tend to rely on a dependent or

independent style in order to make sense of a context when making decisions in an

environment (van Baaren et. al, 2004).

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Thinking in a style of high context dependence means looking to social cues in

order to respond, conforming more to what others are doing, and being more easily

influenced by the behaviour of a group (van Baaren et. al, 2004). Van Baaren,

Horgan, Chartrand and Dijkmans (2004) showed in three different studies that not

only does high context dependence increase conscious and unconscious mimicry, but

that it also is bi-directional: mimicking increases context dependence and context

dependence increases mimicry. In addition, the researchers found that mimicry tends

to “smoothen” the social process between interaction partners, where there is greater

ease and certainty about a particular task and how to interact in achieving a goal-state.

High field dependence and mimicry tend to have the most measurable effect

on the person who is being mimicked. Specific measured effects include prosocial

behaviours, increased generosity toward both the mimicker and non-mimickers in the

vicinity, and higher measures of context-dependent cognitive processing (van Baaren

et. al, 2004). Mimicked participants have been shown more often to pick up the

experimenter’s belongings after being dropped, donate money to a charity, report

higher levels of liking their mimicking interaction partners, and exhibit less negative

connotations with mimicking out-group members than non-mimicked participants

(Cheng & Chartrand, 2003) (van Baaren et. al, 2004) (Inzlicht, Gutsell & Legault,

2010).

Van Baaren et al (2004) suggest that there is a perception-behavior link that

anatomically describes why being mimicked increases. A mimicker strengthens the

validity of the perception of the mimicked interaction partner that the mimicker’s

behavior is effective in meeting a goal state – and furthermore, studies suggest it is

not necessary for this goal state even to be conscious in the mind of the participant

(Hassin, Bargh and Zimerman, 2009).

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Discussion

Self Regulation and Unconscious Mimicry

The moderators of unconscious mimicry anatomically fall under the control of

the vagal nerve complex, a bundle of axons regulating the brain and heart by a dual

feedback system enabling us to maintain complex emotional states of excitation,

awareness and calm (Porges, 1995;1998). In mammals, the myelinated vagus nerve

can rapidly regulate cardiac output to align with the environment through feedback

from cranial nerves that regulate sociability through the mechanisms of facial

expression and vocalization (Porges, 2005). The vagal complex receives BA3b inputs

from SSI and SSII from observed intentions of others (Decety & Jackson, 2004) and

provides a direct anatomical link between unconscious or conscious mimicry and the

unifying variable behind what makes this conscious affiliation possible, unconditional

positive regard. In enlisting a consciousness of positive regard toward the Other, we

activate regulation through our facial and vocal patterns (Porges, 1995; 1998; 2010)

that foster communication, mimicry (Decety & Jackson, 2004) and affiliation (Van

Baaren, 2009).

A healthy use of the tertiary vagal complex in mammals promotes a

parasympathetic response to social interaction and communication (Porges, 2010).

The high demand for oxygen from a highly adapted and sophisticated autonomous

nervous system provided the evolutionary pressure necessary for a communicative

feedback system between face, voice, brain and heart (Porges, 1995). In present day,

scientific knowledge of this system provides the potential for positive, healing

psychological experiences (Rogers, 1995) between the individual and his social

environment catalysed by the increasingly available studies of phenomena such as

unconscious mimicry (Van Baaren, 2009). Polyvagal therapy offers the exciting

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promise of direct stimulation and conscious control of the vagal complex in order to

bring the awareness intentionally into a place of parasympathetic activation,

eliminating the need to conserve cognitive resources (Baumeister & Leary, 1995) in

asinine strategies such as stereotypes or cumbersome, permanent identifications of the

self within particular categorizations that expressly inhibit open social

communications.

Conclusion

If one adopts an attitude of unconditional positive regard toward himself and

those around him, not only will he tend to unconsciously mimic, but he will also

receive the benefits of unconscious mimicry that include increased empathy and

generosity toward others, enhanced feelings of positive self-regard and decreased

perception of differences between himself and his surrounding environment. Studies

to date have provided evidence that five major categories of moderators are

responsible for determining when unconscious mimicry will occur, and are curiously

the same moderators as other studied phenomenon such as empathy.

Unconditional positive regard works to achieve the conditions of the five

moderators by the following: First, ingroup/outgroup distinctions are eliminated,

because there is no longer a group for a person enlisting this tool – there is only

congruence with the self in terms of positiveness and ability to maintain this positivity

unconditionally; Second, self-construal, in order to be unconditionally positive,

requires access to positive working models of the universe and the self’s relation to it

that are neither too arrogant nor too self-detrimental; Third, if we combine the two

elements of an unconditionally positive self-construal, and the elimination of

distinctions of in-groups and out-groups, then we have created a set of conditions in

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which a person’s relationship to his environment is necessarily high in field

dependence. In other words, if my self-view is neither selfless nor full of ego, and my

group is the human beings around me who I regard as unconditionally good, then I

have no choice but to see myself interdependently with my surroundings, thus

resulting in high field dependence; Fourth, in terms of attention, only aspects relevant

to positive and unconditional dimensions are validated in the rostral hippocampus and

are otherwise eliminated in error detection in the dorsal anterior cingulate processing

phase, where a person is rightfully keeping their regard unconditionally positive;

Fifth, affiliation goal serves to be the ultimate inhibition or disinhibition of this

behavioural set once brought to consciousness – do you want to befriend this person,

or don’t you? Therefore, affiliation goal becomes the mediator of the other four

moderators of whether or not mimicry and its associated social benefits occur.

One account for the existence of social disorder in today’s society is due to a lack of

common goals and heightened prejudice towards others (Inzlicht, Gutsell & Legault,

2011). Within interactions between members of society, there exist differing levels of

these moderators. We suggest that it is important to understand the impact of these

moderators on the presence of mimicry in order to attempt to use them as tools in the

conscious, intentional quest towards the increase of commonality of goals,

preventing chaos and violence, and promoting greater empathy between individuals

(Inzlicht, Gutsell & Legault, 2011). We believe that perhaps in the future it will be

possible to extend societal conscious awareness of these phenomena toward the

facilitation of healthy self-regulation in social communications.

Word Count: 3,839 (title page and Imagine song lyrics excluded)

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Education

Imagine: Unconscious Mimicry and a Free & Equal World