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The schema-driven chameleon: how mimicry affects executive and self-regulatory resources.

Publication ,  Journal Article
Dalton, AN; Chartrand, TL; Finkel, EJ
Published in: Journal of personality and social psychology
April 2010

The authors propose that behavioral mimicry is guided by schemas that enable efficient social coordination. If mimicry is schema driven, then the operation of these schemas should be disrupted if partners behave in counternormative ways, such as mimicking people they generally would not or vice versa, rendering social interaction inefficient and demanding more executive and self-regulatory resources. To test this hypothesis, Experiments 1-3 used a resource-depletion paradigm in which participants performed a resource-demanding task after interacting with a confederate who mimicked them or did not mimic them. Experiment 1 demonstrated impaired task performance among participants who were not mimicked by a peer. Experiments 2 and 3 replicated this effect and also demonstrated a significant reversal in social contexts where mimicry is counternormative, suggesting that inefficiency emerges from schema inconsistency, not from the absence of mimicry per se. Experiment 4 used a divided attention paradigm and found that resources are taxed throughout schema-inconsistent interactions. These findings suggest that much-needed resources are preserved when the amount of mimicry displayed by interacting individuals adheres to norms, whereas resources are depleted when mimicry norms are violated.

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Published In

Journal of personality and social psychology

DOI

EISSN

1939-1315

ISSN

0022-3514

Publication Date

April 2010

Volume

98

Issue

4

Start / End Page

605 / 617

Related Subject Headings

  • Surveys and Questionnaires
  • Social Psychology
  • Social Control, Informal
  • Social Behavior
  • Signal Detection, Psychological
  • Self Efficacy
  • Male
  • Interpersonal Relations
  • Imitative Behavior
  • Humans
 

Citation

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ICMJE
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Dalton, A. N., Chartrand, T. L., & Finkel, E. J. (2010). The schema-driven chameleon: how mimicry affects executive and self-regulatory resources. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 98(4), 605–617. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0017629
Dalton, Amy N., Tanya L. Chartrand, and Eli J. Finkel. “The schema-driven chameleon: how mimicry affects executive and self-regulatory resources.Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 98, no. 4 (April 2010): 605–17. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0017629.
Dalton AN, Chartrand TL, Finkel EJ. The schema-driven chameleon: how mimicry affects executive and self-regulatory resources. Journal of personality and social psychology. 2010 Apr;98(4):605–17.
Dalton, Amy N., et al. “The schema-driven chameleon: how mimicry affects executive and self-regulatory resources.Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, vol. 98, no. 4, Apr. 2010, pp. 605–17. Epmc, doi:10.1037/a0017629.
Dalton AN, Chartrand TL, Finkel EJ. The schema-driven chameleon: how mimicry affects executive and self-regulatory resources. Journal of personality and social psychology. 2010 Apr;98(4):605–617.

Published In

Journal of personality and social psychology

DOI

EISSN

1939-1315

ISSN

0022-3514

Publication Date

April 2010

Volume

98

Issue

4

Start / End Page

605 / 617

Related Subject Headings

  • Surveys and Questionnaires
  • Social Psychology
  • Social Control, Informal
  • Social Behavior
  • Signal Detection, Psychological
  • Self Efficacy
  • Male
  • Interpersonal Relations
  • Imitative Behavior
  • Humans