Psychological Distance and Imitation

Imitation of other people’s behavior is a central aspect in human social life. New tasks and complex behaviors can be learned by observation, and the actions of others can provide a social model for one’s own actions across many social situations. Interestingly, imitation occurs not only consciously but also unconsciously in form of mimicry of others. For all types of imitation, psychological distance from the imitated person may vary. The imitated person can be spatially near or distant (e.g., when one is learning a new task face-to-face versus by watching a more distant instruction film), or one may unconsciously mimic a temporally near or distant person (e.g., a person who appears in a new versus old movie). Social distance varies when imitating behavior of an in-group versus an out-group member. The proposed project is designed to investigate how different dimensions of psychological distance from an observed person influence imitation and mimicry. The understanding of how psychological distance affects imitation is important because distance from behavioral models varies in real life in many aspects. psychological studies; experimental methods