Jessica L. Lakin’s research while affiliated with Drew University and other places

The current study examines whether mimicry of negative behaviors occurs in ongoing social interactions, and whether mimicry may be a process through which one person's negative expectations lead to another person's expectancy-consistent behaviors. Using a simulated phone interview, applicant participants heard questions from an interviewer in either a neutral or negative tone of voice. Audio-recordings of applicant responses were transcribed to remove all tone information, and coders assessed applicant performance. Audio-recordings were subjected to a low-pass filter to remove recognizable words but retain vocal tone, and different coders assessed applicant tone of voice. Evidence of both behavioral mimicry and expectancy-consistent performance was found. Importantly, interviewer tone had a significant indirect effect on applicant performance through its influence on applicant tone. Nonconscious behavioral mimicry of negative behaviors occurs in social interactions, is not always associated with positive outcomes, and serves as a process through which behavioral confirmation can occur.

Behavioral mimicry-the automatic imitation of gestures, postures, mannerisms, and other motor movements-is pervasive in human interactions. The current review focuses on two recent themes in the mimicry literature. First, an analysis of the moderators of mimicry uncovers the various motivational, social, emotional, and personality factors that lead to more or less mimicry of an interaction partner in a given situation. Second, a significant amount of recent research has identified important downstream consequences of mimicking or being mimicked by another person. These include not only increased prosociality between interactants, but also unexpected effects on the individual, such as cognitive processing style, attitudes, consumer preferences, self-regulatory ability, and academic performance. Behavioral mimicry is also placed in its broader context: a form of interpersonal coordination. It is compared to interactional synchrony and other social contagion effects, including verbal, goal, and emotional contagion and attitudinal convergence. Expected final online publication date for the Annual Review of Psychology Volume 64 is November 30, 2012. Please see http://www.annualreviews.org/catalog/pubdates.aspx for revised estimates.

Perception and behavior are inextricably intertwined such that people automatically behave as they perceive. This "perception-behavior link" refers to the unintentional, nonconscious effects of social perception on social behavior. The perception of observables may activate specific behavioral representations, trait constructs, or stereotypes. Mimicry is a manifestation of the perception-behavior link at its most fundamental level. It is no more than copying another's observables and requires only the ability to perceive the behavior in the other person and the ability to form the behavior oneself. There is now considerable empirical evidence that people mimic a variety of observables, including speech, facial expressions, physical mannerisms, moods,and emotions. This chapter focuses on automatic imitation, which appears to be a result of the perception-behavior link. After reviewing the evidence for nonconscious mimicry, it explores the origins and utility of behavioral mimicry and argues that it serves a "social survival" function today. This chapter concludes that nonconscious mimicry may be an unidentified strategy in the repertoire of behaviors that help people get along with others.

In this article, we present the Integrated Self-Discrepancy Index (ISDI), a new method for measuring self-discrepancies (Higgins, 198716. Higgins , E. T. 1987. Self-discrepancy: A theory relating self and affect. Psychological Review, 94: 319–340. [CrossRef], [PubMed], [Web of Science ®]View all references) that integrates idiographic and nomothetic methods to address important theoretical and methodological concerns in existing measures. In Study 1, 284 undergraduate participants completed the ISDI to measure ideal-own and ought-own self-discrepancies along with measures of dejection, agitation, cheerfulness, and quiescence. In Study 2, we used the ISDI to measure ideal and ought self-discrepancies from both own and other standpoints; 169 undergraduate participants completed measures of depressive symptoms and social anxiety approximately 1 week later. Data from both studies fully support the fundamental predictions of self-discrepancy theory: Ought self-discrepancies were uniquely related to agitation but not dejection, whereas ideal self-discrepancies were uniquely related to dejection but not agitation. In addition, comparisons to previously published data demonstrate that correlations between the ideal and ought self-discrepancies are significantly lower using the ISDI than using other measures of self-discrepancies, suggesting that the ISDI is better able to measure ideal and ought selves as distinct constructs. This measure may provide researchers with a simpler and more valid method to measure self-discrepancies, contributing to our understanding of the importance of self-discrepancies in many applied literatures.

Research across various disciplines has demonstrated that social exclusion has devastating psychological, emotional, and behavioral consequences. Excluded individuals are therefore motivated to affiliate with others, even though they may not have the resources, cognitive or otherwise, to do so. The current research explored whether nonconscious mimicry of other individuals-a low-cost, low-risk, automatic behavior-might help excluded individuals address threatened belongingness needs. Experiment 1 demonstrated that excluded people mimic a subsequent interaction partner more than included people do. Experiment 2 showed that individuals excluded by an in-group selectively (and nonconsciously) mimic a confederate who is an in-group member more than a confederate who is an out-group member. The relationship between exclusion and mimicry suggests that there are automatic behaviors people can use to recover from the experience of being excluded. In addition, this research demonstrates that nonconscious mimicry is selective and sensitive to context.

Regulatory focus theory [Higgins, E. T. (1998). Promotion and prevention: Regulatory focus as a motivational principle. In M. P. Zanna (Ed.), Advances in experimental social psychology (Vol. 30, pp. 1–46). New York: Academic Press.] argues that concerns with growth and nurturance (i.e., a promotion focus) and concerns with safety and security (i.e., a prevention focus) produce different motives and perception. The current studies test whether regulatory focus also affects individuals’ strivings for self-evaluation. Specifically, we argue that a promotion or a prevention focus directs the self-evaluation process to self-esteem or self-certainty, respectively. Two studies supported this prediction by demonstrating that regulatory focus affects the strength of self-evaluation goals and individuals’ reactions to goal failure. In Study 1, we found that a promotion focus led to a stronger self-esteem goal (as measured by greater accessibility of esteem-related words), whereas a prevention focus led to a stronger self-certainty goal (as measured by greater accessibility of certainty-related words). In Study 2, a promotion failure led to lower self-esteem than a prevention failure, but a prevention failure led to lower self-certainty than a promotion failure. This research suggests an unrecognized role of nurturance and safety concerns in understanding the self-evaluation process.

Mnemonic strategies, such as acronyms, effectively increase student retention of course material. We present an acronym based on a popular television character to help students remember the basic steps in the scientific method. Our empirical evaluation of the acronym revealed that students found it to be enjoyable, useful, and worthy of use in future courses.