The Surprising Truth About Why We Tend To Imitate Others
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Archived from the IMDb Discussion Forums — Philosophy
Alpha Raven Andromeda — 6 years ago(August 17, 2019 12:42 AM)
Fascinating article. I told Nettie that I wasn't being paranoid or delusional. Stupid old bitch!
https://medium.com/the-mission/the-surprising-truth-about-why-we-tend-to-imitate-others-b15831070cd9
Have you ever noticed how synchronized your reactions are with the person you talk to? A common human behavior classified as “mirroring” has been known and studied by psychologists for a long time.
We all tend to mimic gestures of people we like and we do it subconsciously. But why do we act like this? Is there any special reason for that?
As a rule, mirroring means that interlocutors enjoy their communication. There’s a certain level of agreement between them. The topic of discussion is equally interesting for both people and they know that their interests meet.
A historical explanation
Tuning your own mood and actions to others can be traced back to human origins. People used mirroring as a kind of universal signal. In order to survive and evolve, humankind had to learn and invent many things including socially accepted behavior.
There were stronger, smarter and more honored individuals in the human society. These were the ones with a higher social status. All the others had to develop certain behavioral patterns to show their respect and honor to the strongest. For example, if such an honored man wore a handkerchief as a decorative accessory, the rest of the group would consider it to be trendy and an absolute must for them to wear too.
Scientifically speaking
So how does science explain mirroring in communication? That’s all because of a neuron; the one responsible for recognizing faces and understanding their expressions.
This neuron makes you intensely frown your brows or put on a smiley face when it interprets the emotions of the person you communicate with. And it is this neuron that made you repeat actions and make faces before you were even able to talk.
Have you ever experienced a sudden rise in mood when surrounded by funny people? Do pessimistic personalities make you feel down in the dumps? Then, you have well-developed sympathy and your neuron is functioning properly.
Mirroring impact on your daily life
Yawning. A perfect example of the action we can’t resist. Some scientists point out that only sociopaths are immune to contagious yawning.
Sadness. When people around us, even strangers, are sad, we become moody too.
Laugh. Even if we hear some lame joke and see that everyone else is laughing, it makes us giggle too. The laugh is contagious, even without any reason. Make an experiment and listen to someone laughing for a minute on Youtube, eventually, you’ll be the last to stop.
Disgust. The anterior brain fraction gets activated even when we notice the expression of disgust on someone else’s face.
Mirror neurons give us the ability to understand each other better, show significance of our relationships and share emotions with other people, building a foundation for empathy.
Chameleon effect: factors and dependencies
Education level, innate expressiveness, cultural environment we are raised in. All these factors directly impact our inclination to mirror others. Here are the surprising findings that scientists revealed while trying to understand why some of us do this differently.
Education.
Quite unexpectedly they came to the conclusion that education level is also involved. As it turned out, the less educated a person is, the more imitating he or she will be during a conversation.
Personality.
In the study by Kurzius, E. published in Journal of Individual Differences there is a statement that extroverts tend to mimic others more because being liked by others is their priority in contrast to introverts.
Genders. It is believed that women are more inclined to imitations than men and that both genders do it differently. While women are real pros in emotional imitations, men are more focused on their posture and gestures.
Culture. Imitation also depends on some national peculiarities. The national majority of the country is less likely to copy and imitate behavior than the national minority. The general socio-political situation in the country appears to be an even more important factor. Thus, in more conservative, traditional and patriarchal cultures, imitation is more frequent than in liberal ones.
The experiment
According to the study carried out by the University of California, (LA) our brain is wired for responding differently to people depending on the culture they belong to.
There were two participants in the study coming from US and Nicaragua. Both were showing particular gestures to the group under examination (US residents) while special equipment was fixing the strength of signals in the brains of watchers. The neurons of the understudied group responded much more actively to the gestures of an American actor than to those of Nicaraguan.
The survey shows that we are more willing to understand and experience empathy towards people of our nationality or culture.
The story of a stolen identity -
Ajgoodfellow — 6 years ago(August 19, 2019 03:13 AM)
No she just sent me a PM where she called me a ***** and told me to die. Fuck her. She deserves whatever misery she gets. Stupid ass welfare bitch with kids she doesn’t take care of while she chases white dick online. I spit on her. Ptooey!
Hey Diddler, Diddler….the cat and the fiddler LOL -
Alpha Raven Andromeda — 6 years ago(August 19, 2019 10:41 AM)
But those that do imitate, do admire whoever they are imitating. It's sometimes an subconscious behavior, so even if they say they dislike the person, their imitation suggests otherwise.
However, mocking is another story altogether which isn't addressed in this article.