IB Extended Essay

Examination session May 2013

Nrre Gymnasium 0598

Subject: Psychology HL
Title: How does mimicry enhance pro-social
behavior?

Candidate name: Maria Helena Sosinska

Candidate number: 000598-031
Number of words: 3.743

ABSTRACT
This essay investigates how mimicry enhances pro-social behavior.
The interest in research within this field was stimulated by historical
events where people have shown the ability of risking their own
lives to save a stranger, as Lenny Skutnik did in 1972, whereas
sometimes people have instead refused to help, as in the case of
Kitty Genovese's murder in 1964. Today many psychologists try to
explain how pro-social behavior can be manipulated. Based on the
background information, the research question was: how does
mimicry enhance pro-social behavior?
The investigation looked upon different factors and found that the
main factor that evokes pro-social behavior is empathy. The first
essential study supporting the argument that empathy triggers prosocial behavior was conducted by Baaren et al. (2008), explaining
how mimicry enhances empathy. This study showed that mimicry
evokes empathy in both mimickers and mimickees, simultaneously
enhancing a sense of belonging. Humans have a strong urge to
belong, and therefore mimicry evokes positive feelings which lead
to empathy. Finally, a study by Batson et al. (1981) showed how
empathy enhances pro-social behavior. Batson refers to his
"empathy-altruism model", which inter alia claims that seeing
another person suffer can lead to empathetic concern. When this
happens, the observer wants to do anything in order to relieve the
victim's suffering; a will of pro-social behavior is triggered. This
model therefore explains how empathy increases pro-social
behavior. The counter-claim from the evolutionary perspective,
together with the universal egoism, contradicts that humans display
pro-social behavior only to ultimately benefit from it. However,
these claims lack empirical evidence and are therefore insufficient
to argue against the claim that empathy triggers pro-social
behavior. In conclusion, mimicry enhances prosocial behavior by
first provoking empathy in a person, and then triggering pro-social
behavior due to the empathetic concern which an observer
experiences.
Word count: 299

CONTENTS

1.
INTRODUCTION.................................................................................................................
.............................1
2.
DISCUSSION......................................................................................................................
.............................2
2.1 THE INFLUENCE OF MIMICRY ON
EMPATHY................................................................................................2
2.2 THE INFLUENCE OF EMPATHY ON PRO-SOCIAL
BEHAVIOR.........................................................................5
3.
CONCLUSION....................................................................................................................
..............................6
4.
REFERENCES.....................................................................................................................
..............................7

INTRODUCTION
Why do humans display pro-social behavior? The answer to this question has always
been unclear, even though the first attempts to answer it, by the social psychologist
William McDougall, go back to the early 1900s. It was, however, not until the 1970's
when psychologists intensively began to investigate this phenomenon. The reason for
this interest was due to shocking events that took place, such as the impressive case
of Lenny Skutnik in 1972. When the aircraft Air Florida flight 90 crashed into the
Potomac River, USA, covered with ice, Skutnik, a US government office assistant, was
one of the hundreds of witnesses watching the tragedy. He dove into the water and
saved a drowning woman, putting his own life in great danger. In this emergency
situation, it is highly unlikely that Skutnik had time to consider any possible benefits
that could be gained from risking his own life. Lenny Skutnik is only one example of
great acts in human history; people like Oskar Schindler or Paul Rusesabagina also put
their life in extreme danger, with the aim of saving other people's lives. In those cases,
people have shown the ability to act pro-socially. However, the anti-social behaviors in
humans show that pro-social behavior cannot be taken for granted. An example of this
is the notorious murder of Kitty Genovese in 1964. She was stabbed to death in New
York City, while none of the 38 witnesses called the police to help the young woman.
This dramatic event made psychologists wonder why some people decide to help
others, and why others do not. Shortly after this case, a fundamental topic in social
psychology was established, namely the topic of pro-social and anti-social behavior.
This essay will focus on pro-social behavior and how it can be enhanced by mimicry.
Batson (1998) defines pro-social behavior as actions intended to benefit others more
than oneself; behaviors such as helping, comforting, sharing, and co-operating. This
definition focuses on the outcome of the behavior, but it does not, however, explain
the behavior. One of the main questions that psychologists continue to struggle with is
whether humans are capable of acting in a purely altruistic way, that is, without
expecting any benefits from helping. Referring back to the universal egoism, Dovidio
claimed in 1995 that this would be impossible; a view saying that people are
fundamentally selfish. This could be explained biologically: even though the human
brain is highly complex, it still has originates from primitive ancestors. Therefore
egoism is more an instinct than a matter of choice. Similarly, many famous theories,
such as the Kin Selection Theory (Dawkins, 1976), or the Reciprocal Altruism Theory
(Trivers, 1971), claim that all types of helping behavior originates from the desire to
ultimately gain benefit it. Hence they do not support the idea of pure altruism, and are
difficult to apply when it comes to explaining great heroism in human history, as in the
cases of Lenny Skutnik, Schindler or Rusesabagina.
Although there are many situations in which humans chose to help others, there are
many cases as that of Kitty Genovese; people simply chose to not help, even though
the act of helping is as simples as making a phone call to the police. Trying to find an
exact explanation as to why people act this way is very difficult. In any case, by taking
historical facts into consideration (such as those previously mentioned), one can see
that the extent of pro-social behavior occurring in humans varies, depending on the
situation. Thus, pro-social behavior can be manipulated. This has also been confirmed
by a study which concluded that a certain factor in the researcher's behavior would
result in more frequent help from the subject. Researchers showed this by
manipulating the way a participant was treated, to see whether they could, through
their acts, influence the extent of the participant's pre-social behavior. The results
1

showed that the extent of pro-social behavior could be manipulated, and also that the
factor influencing pro-social behavior was mimicry. (van Baaren, Holland, Kawakami, &
Knippenberg, 2004, Study 1).
Mimicry is the act of doing what others are doing. It does not only include speechrelated behaviors, such as tone of voice (Neumann & Strack, 2000), accents (Giles &
Powesland, 1975), syntax (Levelt & Kelter, 1982), rate of speech (Webb, 1969, 1972)
and pauses (Capella & Planalp), but also moods (Neumann & Strack, 2000), mimic
postures and mannerisms(Chartrand & Bargh, 1999), and emotions (Hatfield, Cacioppo
& Rapson, 1994). Furthermore, people frequently exhibit mimicry without being aware
of it. In a study conducted by Chartrand and Bargh (1999), the participants of the
experiment unconsciously began to mimic the confederate without having met him
previously. There is also biological evidence for the automaticity of mimicry, provided
by neuron-scientific research on mirror neurons (Iacobini et al., 1999, Gallese et al.,
1996). This study showed that there is an intimate connection in the human brain
between observing a certain action and performing the same action. One could thus
argue that mimicry is an innate tendency. Furthermore, studies have shown that this
tendency can have positive consequences by increasing pro-social behavior (Stel et
al., 2008; Van Baaren et al., 2004) as mentioned before. Why does that occur? And to
what extent does mimicry actually enhance pro-social behavior? These are some
questions that this essay will investigate. More specifically, the research question that
this essay will aim to answer is the following:
How does mimicry enhance pro-social behavior?
This will be investigated by using empirical evidence to illustrate how mimicry can
elicit empathy, and how this outcome is connected to mimicry's influence on pro-social
behavior.

DISCUSSION

THE INFLUENCE OF MIMICRY ON EMPATHY

Mimicry is a phenomenon that occurs around us on a daily basis, and it happens
automatically. Baumeister and Leary (1995) argue that this is because of the basic
human need to belong. This need motivates the formation and maintenance of
relationships with others. Mimicry plays a significant role in the bonding process,
because of the positive consequences it has on individuals. This claim has been
reinforced by a study conducted by Bernieri in 1988, which showed that mimicry
satisfies the need to belong by creating bonds between people. Another study which
confirmed the positive influence of mimicry on people is the one conducted by
LaFrance and Broadbent in 1976. It showed that when imitating postures of the
teachers, students feel a greater involvement in the classroom. Furthermore, when
mimicry becomes involved in human interaction, prosocial behavior becomes more
2

common. Due to mimicry there is also a greater tendency to donate more money to
charity, and, as a result, people exhibit a greater level of pro-social behavior towards
not only their interaction partner in the study, but also other people in their
surroundings. (Van Baaren, Holland, Kawakami, & Van Knippenberh, 2004 ; Stel, Van
Baaren & Vonk, 2005).
Mimicry is also said to be significant and influential in "emotional contagion". The term
"emotional contagion" is explained by the idea that individuals can personally
experience the emotions of others (Cacioppo, Hatfield & Rapson, 1922). Emotional
contagion is considered to be a two-step process, in which it has been hypothesized
that mimicry is an important mechanism (Adelmann & Zajonc, 1989; Izard, 1971;
Laird, 1984; Lipps, 1907; Tomking, 1963). Since mimicking others emotions is a
process that occurs unconsciously and automatically, people begin to mimic facial
expressions of others once emotional expressions have been perceived. Empirical
evidence has shown that certain muscles on an individual's face are activated due to
mimicry. These muscles then provide feedback to the brain evoking corresponding
emotions in the mimicker (Hess, Kappas, McHugo, Lanzetta, & Kleck, 1992). The
positive influence on emotional contagion via mimicry has also been empirically
demonstrated by Stel et al in 2005.

This study showed that mimicry enhances an increase of emotional contagion. The
emotional contagion provided by mimicry can either be viewed as an affective form of
empathy (Bryant, 1987 ; Eisenberg & Strayer, 1987 ; Feshbach, 1978 ; Hoffman,
1984). However, psychologists do not always share the same opinion as to whether
the form of empathy is affective, or cognitive. Cognitive empathy is described as the
ability to perceive what another person is thinking, whereas affective empathy is the
ability to sense what another person is experiencing emotionally. For instance, Steel et
al. (2005) demonstrated that mimickers felt more cognitive empathy than affective
empathy towards the mimickee because they felt more at ease adopting the
perspectives of the other person. This results because a mimicker, who is mimicking
another person's physical behavior, unconsciously begins to also mimic the
mimickee's mindset due to the sense of connection that automatically occurs.
Therefore, empathy, which involves shared affect as well as cognitive processes
(Davis, 1994 ; Katz, 1959), is enhanced by mimicry. In summary, the study by Stel et
al. (2005) demonstrated that the basic bonding that occurs between the mimicker and
the mimickee is empathy.
In 2008, Baaren et al. conducted a study with the aim to closely investigate the effects
of mimicry on empathy. Forty-six students (eleven males and thirty-five females) from
Radboud University of Nijmegen participated in this study. The average age was 20.9,
ranging from 18 to 27 years. They received an incentive of 2 for participation.
Furthermore, they were randomly assigned to the conditions of a 2 x 2 (Mimicry ; yes
vs. no, Video ; happy vs. sad) between-subjects factorial design.

The eight possible groups are presented in the table below, from A to H:
SAD VIDEO
YES

SAD VIDEO
NO
3

HAPPY VIDEO
YES

HAPPY VIDEO
NO

MIMICRY
NO MIMICRY

A
E

B
F

C
G

D
H

Males and females were counterbalanced across conditions. The researchers used a
cover story which said that the woman in a video, whom the participants would later
be asked to watch, was treated by a therapist. Such a cover story was used because of
its effectiveness in earlier studies. (Stel et al., 2005 ; Vonk, Jolij, Stoeller, & Boog,
2007). To back up the cover story, participants were asked to sign a confidentiality
consent form to agree that the information they would receive during this experiment
would be treated confidentially.
Before watching the video, half of the participants received an instruction to mimic the
facial expressions of the person displayed in the video. The other half of the
participants were asked to do the opposite, that is, to not mimic any expressions at all.
The participants who were asked to mimic, were first given a short lesson on a
computer on how to mimic facial expressions. The main video, lasting 3 minutes,
presented a young woman (in reality an actress) named Marije who was talking to her
therapist. The video consisted of four fragments. The researchers told the participants
that in some of the fragments of the therapy session they would see, the questions
and comments of the therapist had been cut out. The participants would watch Marije
talking about a happy or a sad event, depending on the video condition. In the sad
video, Marije was telling her therapist how she had just found out that her father had
Parkinson's disease; her facial expression was sad and she also appeared close to
tears. In the happy video, however, Marije talked about recently meeting her new
boyfriend; she was acting very happily and excitedly, and while talking about some
specific events she would laugh and smile. During both conditions, only the face and
part of Marije's shoulders were visible in order to ensure that mimicry of facial
expressions, and not other factors (such as e.g. the body language), was the focus of
the participants. There was also some background information given to the
participants, which would give information with happy or sad content about Marije,
depending on the condition the participants were assigned to.
After watching the video, all of the participants were asked to proceed with a
questionnaire which was measuring empathy. This questionnaire was measuring both
the affective and the cognitive form of empathy, as in Stel et al. (2005). It contained
three questions concerning cognitive empathy which used a 7-point Likert scale. The
questions were "Did you take the perspective of Marije?", "Were you involved with the
story that Marije told?" and "Did you place yourself in Marije's shoes?" The emotional
contagion was measured by using eleven emotion scales where the participants were
asked to indicate on a 7-point scale how happy, angry, or sad they felt while watching
the video. The emotions included: tense, enthusiastic, pleased, worried, irritated,
angry, confused, cheerful, dreary, happy, and sad. This approach of distinction
between cognitive and affective empathy may be criticized to be gradual rather than
absolute, but a study by Stel in 2005 has shown that these types of empathy emerge
as independent factors in principal components analyses. At the end of the study, the
participants also filled out a short questionnaire about a random cancer foundation,
and they could donate money if the wished to do so. This had an aim of investigating
4

whether mimicry and emotional contagion would affect pro-social behavior. This will be
discussed in more detail in other sections of this essay.
The results of the study varied significantly depending on whether the participants
were asked to mimic Marije or not. The part of the questionnaire measuring affective
empathy expressed by the participants showed that the video brought about the main
effect. It demonstrated an overall emotional contagion effect, where the participants
reported being happy rather than sad or angry when they saw the video with the
happy content. Also, when watching the video containing sad events, the participants
felt sadness rather than happiness and anger. The results also confirmed the
hypothesis of the researchers, showing that those effects were manipulated by
mimicry. The participants reported less feelings of sadness when they imitated the
expressions of the woman in the video than when they did not. Participants who were
asked to mimic also donated a greater amount of money to the cancer foundation.
Furthermore, mediation analyses showed that it was the affective empathy, and not
the cognitive empathy, that fully mediated the effect of mimicry on donating behavior.
From this study the researchers concluded that the emotions of the participants
corresponded to the emotions of the target to a greater extent; a result of mimicry.
Also, even though the mimickers felt more cognitively involved than nonmimickers, it
was still the affective empathy that dominated. From these results, one can conclude
that people feel more empathy for others when being mimicked. This because people
feel more emotionally attuned to mimickee's emotions. When this happens, affective
empathy is created. This study hence shows that mimicry enhances empathy.
However, one could discuss some limitations of this study. It was an experimental
study, based on videotapes. Thus it lacks ecological validity, that is, the degree to
which the behaviors observed and recorded in a study reflect the behaviors that
actually occur in natural settings and interaction data. Because of the ecological
validity in this study one cannot know whether the assumed beneficial effects of
mimicry occur in everyday interactions between people, and how the effects on
perceivers and targets emerge in real interactions, where the feelings, thoughts, and
behaviors of both are continuously and dynamically affected by each other.
However, a study conducted by Guguen et al. in 2011 has investigated the effects of
mimicry on people in natural settings, and concluded that even then mimicry
enhanced positive behavior and feelings, for example by leading to prosocial behavior
(this will be further investigated at a later point in this essay). Another limitation of the
study by Stel et al. (2005) is that the results could have been a result of demand
characteristics. The participants could have guessed the purpose of the study because
of the direct link between the content of the video and the option of donation money
to charity at the end of the study. Also, instructing the participants to mimic could
have caused more empathy compared to a no instruction condition. However, when
asking the participants at the end of the study if they could possibly guess its purpose,
none of the participants could answer correctly.
After investigating this study closely, one can understand that mimicry enhances
empathy, and why this occurs. However, the effects of mimicry do not only include
feeling empathy towards the mimicker or the mimickee. It can also progress further,
promoting pro-social behavior. But how, and why? This is a topic that will be explained
next.

INFLUENCE OF EMPATHY ON PRO-SOCIAL BEHAVIOR

Empathy can enhance pro-social behavior. This has been explained by a model stated
by Batson et al. in 1981, and is called the" empathy-altruism model". It suggests that
there are two types of emotions people can experience when seeing another person
suffering. The firs type of emotion is personal distress (such as for example fear or
anxiety). This personal distress makes the observer want to help the person in pain
merely in order to get rid of the distress the victim experiences from the unpleasant
situation. This kind of behavior leads to egoistic helping: the helper is helping in order
to ultimately benefit from this act. The other type of emotion, however, is seen as
altruistic behavior which is a form of pro-social behavior. This type of emotion is
empathetic concern. It occurs when a person is helping someone because of
empathetic feelings such as sympathy, compassion, or tenderness. In this situation,
the person who is helping is not expecting to gain any benefits. The only outcome the
helper cares about at that moment is to relieve the other person's suffering.
In order to reinforce this model, Batson conducted an experiment the same year. The
participants, who in this case were students, were asked to listen to tapes of an
interview with a student named Carol. During the interview Carol was talking about
her car accident, in which she had broken both of her legs. She was also talking about
her concerns caused by the accidents, such as her problem with falling behind at
school. Then, the researchers gave each of the participants a letter asking them to
meet with Carol and share their lecture notes with her. Without letting the participants
know about it, the researchers would vary the level of empathy, the independent
variable of the study. In one group of participants the researchers would tell them to
try to focus on how Carol was feeling, with the aim of enhancing high empathy (high
empathy level). The participants of the other group were told that they should not be
concerned with Carol's feelings - this was, therefore, the low empathy level. The
researchers also varied the cost of not helping. In the high-cost group, the participants
were told that Carol would study in the same psychology class as they did as soon as
she returned back to school. In the low-cost group, however, the experimenters told
the participants that Carol would finish the psychology class at home. These students,
therefore, believed they would probably never need to see Carol again.
The results of this study showed that participants who were in the high-empathy group
were almost equally likely to help Carol in both sets of circumstances, whereas
participants from the low-empathy group helped the girl because of self-interest.
Consequently, the results confirmed the empathy-altruism hypothesis. This study
hence shows that empathy enhances pro-social behavior. The empathy-altruism model
makes it easier to predict behavior. One could, however, argue that it is difficult to
measure the level of empathy. Batson argues that empathy is an innate trait in all
human beings, but it is not clear why we do not experience a predictable level of
empathy in a given situation. Another weakness of this study is that the research
investigated merely short-term pro-social behavior, and the interpretation of the
results had not taken personality factors into account.
The positive influence on pro-social behavior evoked by empathy has also been shown
in the study described previously, conducted by Stel et al. in 2005. Both of the two
conditions in the study (the group that was asked to mimic and the other which was
asked not to) had the possibility to donate money to a cancer foundation. The results
showed that the group of participants that had previously been asked to mimic the
6

person shown on a video donated a much greater amount of money than the other
group. The researchers thus concluded that the links between mimicry, empathy and
pro-social behavior suggests that mimicry can create an affective empathic mindset,
evoking pro-social behaviors directed toward others.

CONCLUSION
After taking into consideration the main two studies that were described in this essay
(Stel et al. 2005 and Batson et al. 1981), it becomes clear how mimicry enhances prosocial behavior through empathy. The study conducted by Stel et al. showed that when
people mimic others, or are mimicked, a general empathic mindset is activated. This is
coherent with the conclusion made by Mller et al. in 2007, namely that mimicry
makes people feel that they are being empathized with, and understood. Once
empathy has been triggered, pro-social behavior is enhanced. The reason for this is
that people have the ability to experience empathetic concern when seeing someone
in need of help, and hence decide to help merely with the aim of relieving the suffering
of the other person (Batson et al. 1981).
Both of these studies have been conducted in an experimental environment, which
means that they lack ecological validity. However, the study conducted by Guegun et
al. in 2011 has shown that people showed as much pro-social behavior in a natural,
everyday setting as when they were approached arbitrarily in the streets as when they
participated in a laboratory study.
Nevertheless, there is still a lack of sufficient literature on the mechanism that causes
enhanced pro-social behavior due to mimicry. For instance, in the study by Stel et al. in
2005 on empathy and mimicry, the researchers expected the empathy between
participants to cause the demonstrated shift in the self-construal. Self-construal is a
combination of thoughts, feelings and actions concerning the relation of the self to
others and the self as distinct from others. However, the question of whether affective
empathy and self-construals are related still needs further investigation. Another
possible topic for further investigation is whether helping behavior can be purely
unselfish, and to what extent mimicry has an influence on this.
In conclusion, the answer to my research question "How does mimicry
enhance pro-social behavior?" is that mimicry enhances prosocial behavior
by first provoking empathy in a person, and then triggering pro-social
behavior due to the empathetic concern which the observer is experiencing.

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