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Social mimicry and power dynamics.
Cheers guys.
Lately while listening to an audiobook I came across a concept called social mimicry. Some searches and I found this article.
After reading some parts and giving it some thought I've finally found the explanation for a behaviour within myself I didn't understood: "The higher power I am the easier it is to think critically".
In the article:
First, nonconscious mimicry is increased when people are more focused on the individuals around them. Providing initial support for this contention, Chartrand & Bargh (1999, study 3) found that people high in perspective taking (i.e. who are paying more attention to those around them) mimicked the behaviour of a confederate to a greater extent than those low in perspective taking.
Higher power as we call it here is related to more emotional independence, less "attachment" to others, focusing on ones goals, etc. Hence the reason for higher power making it easier to think things twice before believing something, although I believe that there are more variables here that would explain how power and how easy to persuade you are, are related.
Funny enough this explains in part why a high EI paired with low power awareness is a recipe for disaster in toxic environments. It seems likely that even power awareness and a high power mindset would make easier to mimic someone you care about and complete or almost complete emotional independence for someone would probably make the task childs play.
This would also mean that seeking to befriend or get along turkeys and/or people without ambition will make you assimilate those traits unless you take action to prevent it.
Another interesting thing that would explain why collaborative frames can be effective to make others behave more prosocially:
Additional evidence for the moderating role of concern with others comes from research by van Baaren et al. (2003). In three studies that either temporarily primed self-construal orientation or compared participants from different cultures, an interdependent self-construal was associated with more automatic mimicry than with an independent self-construal. In essence, self-construal refers to the extent to which people perceive themselves as unique individuals, independent of others instead of connected to, and dependent on, others (see Brewer 1991). Even though, in general, some people are enduringly more dependent than independent, self-construal can be temporarily modified. For example, priming participants by presenting them or having them read words like ‘I’, ‘me’ or ‘mine’ versus ‘we’, ‘us’ or ‘our’ temporarily shifts their self-construals on the social-personal dimension. This in turn influences the degree of unconscious mimicry in a subsequent interaction with a stranger (Van Baaren et al. 2003; study 2). That is, participants with either a temporary or enduringly dominant and interdependent self were more likely to nonconsciously take on the behaviours and mannerisms of a confederate. Using a stimulus–response compatibility task (a dependent variable more common to cognitive psychology compared to spontaneous mimicry), Leighton et al. (submitted) recently conceptually replicated this effect.
Basically, having individuals read words like us, we, our shifts their perspective made them more likely to mimic those around them.
Will probably post more things related to the matter later.
Feel free to post about the matter of course.
