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Related Experiment Video

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Creating Virtual-hand and Virtual-face Illusions to Investigate Self-representation

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Automatic imitation is automatic, but less so for narcissists.

Jeremy Hogeveen¹, Sukhvinder S Obhi

¹Department of Psychology and Centre for Cognitive Neuroscience, Wilfrid Laurier University, Waterloo, ON, Canada.

Experimental Brain Research

|November 29, 2012

Summary

Automatic imitation, a key human behavior, is largely automatic but influenced by expectations. Narcissism can enhance how expectations affect this automatic imitation process, revealing nuances in social behavior.

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Area of Science:

Cognitive Psychology
Social Neuroscience
Behavioral Science

Background:

Imitation is a crucial human capability studied extensively in behavioral sciences.
The automatic imitation paradigm investigates basic imitation mechanisms through cued and incidental motor actions.
Previous research shows slower responses when incidental actions incongruent with cued actions, but automaticity remains debated.

Purpose of the Study:

To investigate the role of expectation in automatic imitation by manipulating trial probabilities.
To determine if narcissism, a trait related to processing others' behavior, influences the automaticity of imitation.
To clarify the extent to which imitation in the automatic imitation paradigm is truly automatic.

Main Methods:

Manipulation of congruent and incongruent trial probabilities within experimental blocks.
Assessment of response times to cued actions under varying expectation conditions.
Measurement of narcissism levels and correlation with imitation automaticity.

Main Results:

Imitation in the automatic imitation paradigm proved robust against expectation manipulations.
The influence of expectation on automatic imitation was amplified in individuals with higher narcissism scores.
Narcissism moderated the manifestation of imitative behavior in the automatic imitation paradigm.

Conclusions:

Imitation observed in the automatic imitation paradigm is predominantly automatic.
Individual differences, specifically narcissism, can modulate the degree to which automatic imitation is expressed.
Expectation plays a role, but its impact on automatic imitation is personality-dependent.