Human See, Human Do: We Imitate, Even if Others Dislike It

By Maura Nevejans

Source: Mwabonje Ringa / Pexels

Imagine this: you decide to catch up with a friend you haven’t seen in months at your local café. You both order a glass of rosé and start sharing the latest events in your lives. When you take a sip of your wine, you notice your friend also raises her glass and drinks. The conversation continues and you run your hand through your hair almost without noticing. Less than 10 seconds later, she does the same. Only now do you realize you’re both sitting with crossed legs, with one arm resting on the table. Is she copying you? It’s probably just a coincidence, right? Your friend takes another sip of her wine. You lift your glass and drink.

The scene described here is not that uncommon. When people talk to each other, they often mimic each other’s movements, mannerisms, and postures. Most of the time, we don’t even notice this copying behavior: we’re unaware that we’re imitating others or being imitated ourselves. Yet, this unconscious copying behavior seems to be beneficial for our social interactions. Research shows that when people imitate each other’s behaviors, they tend to like each other more and the conversation flows more smoothly. Where does this automatic imitation come from?

It appears that we humans possess some kind of ‘imitation impulse’. When we observe a movement, the same action is automatically triggered in our motor system, for which the so-called mirror neurons are responsible. These motor neurons in the brain activate both when we perform an action and when we observe someone else performing the same action. This creates the tendency to copy the observed behavior: the imitation impulse.

In research, we measure the imitation impulse using a simple task: participants are asked to perform certain movements, like opening or closing their hand. At the same time, they observe someone else performing the same or the opposite movement. This influences their task performance: when you have to open your hand while seeing someone closing theirs, you respond more slowly and make more errors. When you observe the same movement, you’re faster and more accurate. This is your imitation impulse at work!

A strategic imitation impulse?

It’s sometimes claimed that you imitate others because this makes them like you more. In other words, without even realizing it, your friend might be copying you because you respond positively to it. But is this actually the case? What happens if someone dislikes being imitated? Does your imitation impulse differentiate between situations where imitation is helpful and those where it is not?

Our research suggests it does not! We created a virtual-reality task with virtual characters, in which we could trigger and measure participants’ imitation impulse. As expected, participants tended to imitate the virtual characters. Surprisingly, they also showed an imitation impulse when the virtual characters reacted angrily to being imitated. Even more, participants were aware that the virtual character disliked being imitated. Hence, it doesn’t really matter how the other person reacted: participants had the impulse to imitate.

Monkey see, monkey do?

Luckily, we don’t imitate everyone and everything we see. Imagine if you were to copy every movement you observed: you’d hardly get anything done! While the imitation impulse occurs automatically, we can actively suppress it when needed.

During your next get-together, you can try to see if you unintentionally drink from your glass at the same time as your conversation partner or if you both, for example, end up sitting with crossed legs.

Maura Nevejans is a researcher at the Learning and Implicit Processes Lab and the EXPLORA Lab at Ghent University. This post is an adaptation of the Dutch blog “Na-apen is sterker dan jezelf”, also published on the website of the science magazine EOS Wetenschap.