Conformity and Mimicry

Over the course of the social experiment, I spoke to seven people and noted their mimicking behavior for up to five body movements over the course of the conversation. Ideally, the study should have been limited to people I know rather superficially, but I found that I rarely interact with people that I don’t know on a relatively deep level. Therefore, my data includes a wide spectrum of people, ranging from a girl I met that moment to my boss to my boyfriend. The chart below tracts the body movements and mimicking responses from the seven people I conversed with, in chronological order starting from the first conversation.

Action

Name

Face touch

Arm Cross

Leg Cross

Eyebrow touch

Arm uncross

Alex

Yes

No

No

Yes

N/A

Gabe

Yes

No

Yes

N/A

N/A

Cherie

Yes

Yes

N/A

Yes

Yes

Maureen

Yes

Yes

N/A

Yes

Yes

Tom

Yes

Yes

Yes

N/A

N/A

Keely

No

No

No

No

N/A

Boothe

No

No

N/A

No

N/A

Interestingly, while conducting this study, I’ve become more aware of the mimicking tendencies I have, and have found that I mimic people often, especially the ones feel the need to impress. Yet if I do not feel the need to impress an individual, I am not compelled to copy their movements. Also, the better I knew them, the more equal our mimicking behaviors were.

Starting with Alex, my boyfriend, I found that since we’re rather equal (meaning neither of us feel the need to impress the other), and he knows me quite well, we took turns mimicking each other. I’d unconsciously copy his body movements, and then purposefully move to my planned ones, and he’d follow suit.

When speaking with Boothe, my boss, I found myself mimicking him unconsciously. I had to consciously maintain my body movements, because I had a strong desire to copy him. This may be because I want him to like me, and mimicking body movements implies that the two individuals are similar and should be favored by each other. He may not have mimicked me because he knows I am slightly inferior...