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 psychological distance (i.e., social, spatial, temporal distance), which has been shown to cause a more abstract representation of a behavior, influences imitation. The understanding of how psychological distance affects imitation is important because distance from behavioral models varies in real life in many aspects. In two subprojects, it is planned to test whether psychological distance of other peoples` actions influences one`s own behavior. Subproject A investigates how psychological distance affects imitation of global goals versus specific means. Specifically, ten studies are designed to test whether psychological distance from an observed behavior or a directly manipulated abstract representation of behavior relate to imitation of an abstract goal of an action, and psychological proximity or a concrete representation relate to the imitation of concrete means to a goal. Studies 1 and 2 test this idea on a basic level (i.e., in a simple reaction task). Studies 3-5 replicate the idea with socially relevant behavior (i.e., helping behavior). Studies 6 and 7 are designed to extend the effect with other manipulations of behavior representation: It is hypothesized that imitation of behavior of a specific individual (versus "the average person," Study 6) and behavior that is depicted visually (versus verbally, Study 7) will cause relatively more imitation of means (versus goals). Studies 8-10 examine situations in which low-level behavior representations interfere with one`s own goals. Subproject B addresses the question whether psychological distance can shape unconscious mimicry of motor behavior. It is suggested that motor behaviors that are peripheral to an interaction situation (incidental gestures) are mentally construed on a more concrete, lower level, whereas motor behaviors that are central to an interaction situation (goal-relevant gestures) are construed on a more abstract, higher level. So far, research has concentrated on mimicry of comparatively low-level, goal-irrelevant motor behaviors, such as face-touching, face-rubbing, or foot-moving. The proposed project tests whether distance affects the mental construal of low-level versus high- level motor elements and subsequent mimicry. Studies 11-13 examine whether psychological distance affects mimicry of the central versus peripheral gestures of a model observed in a video. Studies 14 and 15 will extend the idea to real social interactions. Finally, Study 16 will test the converse relationship between behavior representation and mimicry. That is, being mimicked on a concrete (versus abstract) level may create more concrete (versus abstract) construal of the interaction partner`s behavior.

Imitation of other people's behavior is a central aspect in 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. For all types of imitation, psychological distance from the imitated person varies. For instance, the imitated person can be spatially near or distant (when one is learning a new task face-to-face versus by watching an instruction film) or temporally near or distant (a person who appears in a new versus old movie). In our project, we investigated how different dimensions of psychological distance from an observed behavior influence imitation. We based our research on Construal Level Theory (Trope & Liberman, 2003, 2010) that proposes that psychological distance from a behavior increases the tendency to build a more abstract rather than concrete mental representation of that behavior. Concrete representations of behaviors include more details about the action (such as specific movements) and more contextual information than abstract representations. Abstract representations, in contrast, include more superordinate goals. Since distance shapes action representation, does it also influence how observed behaviors are imitated? Our research addressed this question and found that a behavior is imitated in a more precise action-by-action manner when it is framed as psychologically near than when it is framed as psychologically distant. For instance, we found that participants who learned a novel task from a video model engaged in relatively more exact imitation when they had been told that the video was recorded recently or at a near-by location than if they were told that the video was recorded a long time ago or at a distant location. In addition, we found that psychological distance (vs. proximity) decreased the rate of goal errors compared to movement errors. So, proximity increases movement-based imitation whereas distance increased goal-based imitation. This influence of distance is further supported by findings showing that people were more likely to imitate meaningful gestures of an interaction partner when feeling psychologically close to the interaction situation. The effects found in our research have broader implications in applied fields where distance framing can be controlled, such as in e-learning or in the influence of role models. For example, since proximity causes more fine-grained imitation of an action but distance causes imitation to more reflections of the goal of an action, framing an observed behavior as near versus distant should improve learning at different stages of the learning process. Depending on whether learning of goals or learning of movements is most relevant at a given stage, different levels of distance may help learners to focus on that particular content.