buyingCommentary on a Psychological Research Article
The article written by Van Baaren et al. (2002) investigates the behavioral consequences of imitation, specifically mimicry. It has been supposed that behavioral mimicry is able to establish rapport, enhance liking and strengthen the relations between people, but no studies have experimentally proved the specific behavioral consequences of imitation.
The article describes a cause relationship between behavioral mimicry and its behavioral consequences in a form of producing larger tips for a waitress.The authors put forward a hypothesis that people being mimicked demonstrate more generous response toward the person. This hypothesis was tested in a real life restaurant setting.
The researchers used the scientific method to test their hypothesis that allowed avoiding being tricked by their own biases. This study is experimental because the researchers provided random assignment of participants to groups and manipulated an independent variable – whether or not these participants were being mimicked.
60 groups of customers of the real restaurant were randomly sorted into one of two groups in order to cancel out preexisting differences between two groups, such as differences in their personality traits, gender, race, and others. The first group is the experimental group thatreceives the manipulation in a form of mimicry. The other is the control group thatwas assigned tothe non-mimicry condition. The average size of groups is 2.35 people without a difference between the two conditions.
During the experiment, a waitress in a restaurant verbally mimicked half of her customers by verbal repeating the customer’s orders and did not introduce such behavior to the other half. Afterwards, the experimenters assessed the size of the tips received. The researchers instructed the waitress to introduce the same behavior across two conditions except the verbal mimicry. In order to remove other possible differences in both conditions, a waitress clearly demonstrated that the order was understood in the nonmimicry condition although she did not repeat the orders.
In the experiment, the researches manipulated an independent variable, which wasthe presence versus absence of waitress’s mimicry behavior. The dependent variable was the size of tipsthat were measured to check whether this manipulation had an effect.
Besides, there was a potential confounding variable. It could imply that the observed effect of mimicry might be specific to the person who did this manipulation. It could impact to some extent the level of the effect that independent variable exerted on the dependent variable through diffusion of the difference in influences on the groups. It reduces the internal validity that means reducing the capacity to draw adequate cause-and-effect conclusions. Because of the confound, it is impossible to define exactly why the experimental group was actually more generous than the control group.
The study has some limitations that can influence understanding the results. The first limitation refers to the waitress’s awareness of the proposed hypothesis. It may change her behavior inadvertently not only in the degree of mimicry, but also in other relevant aspects. Another issue is that rather than reflecting the consequences of mimicry, the results of the experiment can indicate customer believing that the waitress understood the order properly. In addition, the study did not take into account the influence of some specific features of imitator’s personality that could be easy to define such as attractiveness or inherited communication skills that can produce a synergy effect or on the contrary level the effects of the manipulation. In addition, the major part of customers may be regular customers used to receiving good food and service that can adjust their tipping behaviors regardless of any manipulation they receive.
Van Baaren et al. state that the study results confirmed their hypothesis that mimicry increases tipping. The size of observed tips from customers that were mimicked is increased by more than 68%. They conclude that mimicking people may be beneficial by making them more generous towards those who mimic them.
It is important to note that the present studies demonstrated mentioned effects in a real-life restaurant setting that support external validity of the consequences of mimicry. Despite the availability of confounding variable, the study has sufficient internal validity that allowsdrawing cause-and-effect inferences without cause details — something in waitress behavior influences the generosity of customers.
Press Release for a Psychological Research Article
Mimicking makes people more generous towards those who mimic them. The study of Van Baaren et al. (2002) supports this surprising statement by the results of the experiments conducted in real life restaurant settings. Their study “Mimicry for money: Behavioral consequences of imitation” was published in 39th issue of Journal of Experimental Social Psychology in 2003.
Van Baaren and his colleagues from the University of Nijmegen, Netherland developed the scientific methods for studying of the behavioral consequences of mimicry that was presented by a waitress to unaware customers in the restaurant. The research finds casual relations between mimicry and enhanced generosity of customers that manifest in producing larger tips for a waitress.
The research included two experiments to check whether verbalmimicking customers by a waitress would increase the size of her tips. In the first experiment, a waitress demonstrated mimicking behavior to half of her customers by verbal repeating their orders and did not introduce such behavior to the other half. Afterwards, the researchers found that the size of the tips grew significantly when customers were mimicked by a waitress. In the second experiment, they assessed average tip prior to experiment to increase the validity of the findings. The results also showed that mimicry produced larger tips. Thus, the study demonstrated that mimicry can be beneficial for the mimicker because it can increase people’s generosity.
It has been supposed that behavioral mimicry may help to establish rapport, enhance liking and strengthen the relations between people, but no studies have experimentally proved the specific behavioral consequences of imitation. This work is an attempt to answer the question concerning the functions of mimicry. Increasing the kindness, liking and closeness of the mimicked person is one of possible important functions because they constitute favorable conditions for generosity.
The research findings provide new insight into people relations through defining a casual relation between imitation and its behavioral consequences. It means that inthe interpersonal relations mimicry play a mediating role and can contribute to establishing effective communications. The work suggests that the behavioral effect of mimicry can be observed in a wide range of social situations other than customers – waiters’ interactions.
In general, mimicry promotes pro-social behavior. The practical implications of the research can include facilitating the communication issues concerning the people who urgently needs help, the purposes of bonding and mating, and resources sharing within a group. The research finding makes mimicry a powerful tool in building and maintaining positive relationships between individuals.