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The Influence of Mimicry on the Reduction of Infra-Humanization

The paper investigates the role of mimicry in the reduction of infra-humanization. Mimicry as an automatic imitation of a partner’s behavior (this is known as “social glue”) connects people (Miles et al., 2010). Empirical findings have confirmed that mimicry leads to favorable treatment of the mimic...

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Autores principales: Szuster, Anna, Wojnarowska, Agnieszka
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2016
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4923061/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27445935
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2016.00975
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author Szuster, Anna
Wojnarowska, Agnieszka
author_facet Szuster, Anna
Wojnarowska, Agnieszka
author_sort Szuster, Anna
collection PubMed
description The paper investigates the role of mimicry in the reduction of infra-humanization. Mimicry as an automatic imitation of a partner’s behavior (this is known as “social glue”) connects people (Miles et al., 2010). Empirical findings have confirmed that mimicry leads to favorable treatment of the mimicker (Van Baaren et al., 2003). The mechanism is reciprocal: the mimicker is more positively inclined towards the person mimicked (Chartrand and Bargh, 1999). Mimicry increases the sense of interpersonal closeness, reciprocal similarity, and facilitates the flow of interaction and helping behavior (Stel et al., 2008). At the same time, results point to a spontaneous inhibition of mimicry in the contact with members of negatively stereotyped groups (Bourgeois and Hess, 2008). So than, there are reasons to believe that purposeful activation of mimicry may reduce manifestations of negative attitudes towards others, i.e., infra-humanization. It was expected that imitating a model shown on video would lower the level of infra-humanization, i.e., perceiving another individual as less capable than the Self of experiencing exclusively human (secondary) emotions. The study sample consisted of 117 female students. The study followed an experimental design and was conducted individually. It employed questionnaires and a purpose-made video recording showing a model whose facial expressions were to be mimicked by the participants. The results confirmed the predictions. Mimicking facial expressions reduced the level of infra-humanization compared to the no mimicking and control conditions [F(2,114) = 3.39, p = 0.037, η(2) = 0.06].
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spelling pubmed-49230612016-07-21 The Influence of Mimicry on the Reduction of Infra-Humanization Szuster, Anna Wojnarowska, Agnieszka Front Psychol Psychology The paper investigates the role of mimicry in the reduction of infra-humanization. Mimicry as an automatic imitation of a partner’s behavior (this is known as “social glue”) connects people (Miles et al., 2010). Empirical findings have confirmed that mimicry leads to favorable treatment of the mimicker (Van Baaren et al., 2003). The mechanism is reciprocal: the mimicker is more positively inclined towards the person mimicked (Chartrand and Bargh, 1999). Mimicry increases the sense of interpersonal closeness, reciprocal similarity, and facilitates the flow of interaction and helping behavior (Stel et al., 2008). At the same time, results point to a spontaneous inhibition of mimicry in the contact with members of negatively stereotyped groups (Bourgeois and Hess, 2008). So than, there are reasons to believe that purposeful activation of mimicry may reduce manifestations of negative attitudes towards others, i.e., infra-humanization. It was expected that imitating a model shown on video would lower the level of infra-humanization, i.e., perceiving another individual as less capable than the Self of experiencing exclusively human (secondary) emotions. The study sample consisted of 117 female students. The study followed an experimental design and was conducted individually. It employed questionnaires and a purpose-made video recording showing a model whose facial expressions were to be mimicked by the participants. The results confirmed the predictions. Mimicking facial expressions reduced the level of infra-humanization compared to the no mimicking and control conditions [F(2,114) = 3.39, p = 0.037, η(2) = 0.06]. Frontiers Media S.A. 2016-06-28 /pmc/articles/PMC4923061/ /pubmed/27445935 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2016.00975 Text en Copyright © 2016 Szuster and Wojnarowska. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
spellingShingle Psychology
Szuster, Anna
Wojnarowska, Agnieszka
The Influence of Mimicry on the Reduction of Infra-Humanization
title The Influence of Mimicry on the Reduction of Infra-Humanization
title_full The Influence of Mimicry on the Reduction of Infra-Humanization
title_fullStr The Influence of Mimicry on the Reduction of Infra-Humanization
title_full_unstemmed The Influence of Mimicry on the Reduction of Infra-Humanization
title_short The Influence of Mimicry on the Reduction of Infra-Humanization
title_sort influence of mimicry on the reduction of infra-humanization
topic Psychology
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4923061/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27445935
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2016.00975
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