Do we mimic what we see or what we know?

Heß, Ursula; Houde, S.; Fischer, Agneta

doi:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199659180.003.0007

Cited by 49 publications

(35 citation statements)

References 40 publications

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“…As may be inferred from the above review on the different theories and functions of mimicry, there is not one path way leading to emotional mimicry, but several, and they do not necessarily exclude each other, but occur in different settings Hess, Houde, & Fischer, 2014). The most primitive and implicit pathway is via embodiment, as a subtle mimicry response to a similar other.…”

Section: Conclusion: Emotional Mimicry and Synchrony In Groupsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Role of Emotional Mimicry in Intergroup Relations

Heß¹,

Fischer²

2017

Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Communication

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What is the role of emotional mimicry in intergroup relations? There are different theoretical accounts of the function and underlying processes of emotional mimicry. A review of research on emotional mimicry suggests that, in general, emotional mimicry reinforces existing group boundaries, rather than breaking or dissolving them. Specifically, there is consistent evidence that people tend to mimic similar others more than dissimilar others. Given that ingroup members are by definition more similar to each other than to outgroup members, this implies that the former are more likely to be mimicked than the latter. In turn, mimicry improves social bonds with others, which then facilitates ingroup relations. The most primitive and implicit pathway for mimicry is via embodiment, and it can only take place when there is an actual interaction between group members. To the degree that such processes are presumed to be automatic, it is likely that they tend to reinforce social exclusion of outgroup members. By contrast, the most explicit pathway to mimicry is via perspective taking, in which one deliberately tries to take the other’s perspective. This process does not require the actual presence of members of other groups, but some form of empathy when judging or expecting to meet other group members. This process is more amenable to top-down influences. The research on mimicry also converges on the notion that when mimicry (or in fact other forms of behavior matching) is present, interactions can be expected to be more affiliative. Thus, with effort, mimicry can also be a tool for improving intergroup relations. As always, however, it requires more effort to cross group boundaries than to stay within them.

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Section: Conclusion: Emotional Mimicry and Synchrony In Groupsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Role of Emotional Mimicry in Intergroup Relations

Heß¹,

Fischer²

2017

Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Communication

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“…Ritualistic joint actions of this kind are also paradigmatic examples of collective effervescence in which shared emotions intensify and spread among the co-agents through extensive behavioral synchrony and entrainment. Finally, the stability of the co-agents and their shared social identity are important for emotional mimicry and contagion as we mimic the facial, vocal, and postural expressions of emotion more with those with whom we share group membership than with out-group members or, even less so, our enemies (Hess et al 2014). Here we can surmise that group membership founded on a collective commitment associates with more robust affective synchrony than group membership based on merely private affiliation.…”

Section: Shared Emotions and The Phenomenology Of Joint Actionmentioning

confidence: 99%

How does it really feel to act together? Shared emotions and the phenomenology of we-agency

Salmela

Nagatsu

2016

Phenom Cogn Sci

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Research on the phenomenology of agency for joint action has so far focused on the sense of agency and control in joint action, leaving aside questions on how it feels to act together. This paper tries to fill this gap in a way consistent with the existing theories of joint action and shared emotion. We first reconstruct Pacherie's (Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences, 13, 25-46, 2014) account on the phenomenology of agency for joint action, pointing out its two problems, namely (1) the necessary trade-off between the sense of self-and weagency; and (2) the lack of affective phenomenology of joint action in general. After elaborating on these criticisms based on our theory of shared emotion, we substantiate the second criticism by discussing different mechanisms of shared affect-feelings and emotions-that are present in typical joint actions. We show that our account improves on Pacherie's, first by introducing our agentive model of we-agency to overcome her unnecessary dichotomy between a sense of self-and we-agency, and then by suggesting that the mechanisms of shared affect enhance not only the predictability of other agents' actions as Pacherie highlights, but also an agentive sense of we-agency that emerges from shared emotions experienced in the course and consequence of joint action.

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“…A notable exception by Halberstadt and colleagues [ 19 ] shows how emotional expressions when viewing ambiguous faces (composed from a morph of smiling and anger stills) are determined by associating the ambiguous face with terms such as “happy”. More recent work has also demonstrated that mere association of a neutral face with an emotional term can result in mimicry of that emotion, even though the face shows no indication of this [ 20 ]. Traditionally however, and certainly in terms of these aforementioned studies, smiles are indicative of positive emotions, and frowns of negative emotions, therefore resulting in a consistent mimicry response.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Facial Mimicry and Emotion Consistency: Influences of Memory and Context

et al. 2015

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This study investigates whether mimicry of facial emotions is a stable response or can instead be modulated and influenced by memory of the context in which the emotion was initially observed, and therefore the meaning of the expression. The study manipulated emotion consistency implicitly, where a face expressing smiles or frowns was irrelevant and to be ignored while participants categorised target scenes. Some face identities always expressed emotions consistent with the scene (e.g., smiling with a positive scene), whilst others were always inconsistent (e.g., frowning with a positive scene). During this implicit learning of face identity and emotion consistency there was evidence for encoding of face-scene emotion consistency, with slower RTs, a reduction in trust, and inhibited facial EMG for faces expressing incompatible emotions. However, in a later task where the faces were subsequently viewed expressing emotions with no additional context, there was no evidence for retrieval of prior emotion consistency, as mimicry of emotion was similar for consistent and inconsistent individuals. We conclude that facial mimicry can be influenced by current emotion context, but there is little evidence of learning, as subsequent mimicry of emotionally consistent and inconsistent faces is similar.

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Do we mimic what we see or what we know?

Cited by 49 publications

References 40 publications

The Role of Emotional Mimicry in Intergroup Relations

The Role of Emotional Mimicry in Intergroup Relations

How does it really feel to act together? Shared emotions and the phenomenology of we-agency

Facial Mimicry and Emotion Consistency: Influences of Memory and Context

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