Only empathy-related traits, not being mimicked or endorphin release, influence social closeness and prosocial behavior

Abstract

Seminal studies suggest that being mimicked increases experienced social closeness and prosocial behavior to a mimicking confederate (i.e., interaction partner). Here we reexamine these results by considering the role of empathy-related traits, an indirect proxy for endorphin uptake, and their combined effects as an explanation for these results. 180 female participants were mimicked or anti-mimicked in an interaction with a confederate. The effects of being mimicked versus anti-mimicked in relation to empathy-related traits and endorphin release (assessed indirectly via pain tolerance) on experienced closeness and prosocial behavior were assessed using Bayesian analyses. Our results suggest that high individual empathy-related traits increase social closeness to the anti-mimicking and mimicking confederate and to one’s romantic partner, as compared to mimicry alone. Results furthermore strongly suggest that high individual empathy-related traits increase prosocial behavior (donations and willingness to help) as compared to mimicry alone. These findings extend previous work by highlighting that empathy-related traits are more influential in creating positive effects on social closeness and prosocial behavior than a one-shot mimicking encounter.

The evolutionary role of dance: Group bonding but not prosocial altruism.

“…Thus, Hypothesis 1a was confirmed, but not Hypotheses 1b, 2, or 3. The contrast between sense of bonding (Hypothesis 1a—a “hot” form of social cognition) and Hypothesis 2 (financial generosity) parallels that found in previous studies on the effects of laughing together (Dunbar, Frangou, et al, 2021) and behavioral imitation (Rauchbauer et al, 2023). That activity had little effect on positive affect (although both did reduce negative affect) suggests that these effects cannot be explained as simple responses to induced affect (see also Dunbar, Baron, et al, 2012; Dunbar et al, 2016).…”

Emotional intensity supports social bonding independently of emotional similarity during shared experiences

“…Second, we chose to focus on the explanatory role of emotion in social bonding at the expense of other candidate factors. For example, we did not measure empathy-related traits which are known to highly influence social bonding during joint activities (Stupacher et al, 2022;Rauchbauer et al, 2023). Moreover, we left the measure of sacredness out of the analysis to focus on feelings of closeness, hence, capturing only part of the subjective experience of collective effervescence.…”

The impact of mimicry behavior on guilt

“…If this is the case, this perception could alter the emotional dynamics of the interaction. Future research should investigate alterna tive control conditions, such as the 'anti-mimicry' condition recently introduced by Rauchbauer et al (2023). The implementation of such conditions could provide deeper insights into how mimicry influences emotional and social responses, particularly in the context of our findings.…”