How imitation moves: Effects of movement congruency and temporal contingency on affiliation, social influence, empathy and prosocial behavior

Being imitated has profound effects on social affect and behavior, but it is still unclear how it produces these effects. According to one view the effects are grounded in covert movement simulations and therefore require the movements of the individuals to be bodily congruent. Yet, imitation could also have its positive effects because of the rewarding experience of perceiving temporal contingencies between one’s own and others’ movements, implying that these effects would also occur if the imitator’s movements are temporally contingent, but not bodily congruent. In two experiments, we assessed whether bodily congruency is necessary for increasing empathy and prosocial behavior, or whether temporal contingency alone can also produce such effects. Participants made spontaneous joystick movements while engaging in a feigned webcam interaction with two confederates, one of whom made imitative movements, while the other (the control actor) made unrelated movements. In two experimental groups, we varied whether the imitator made bodily congruent or temporally contingent movements. Participants reported more affiliation to the congruent actor compared to the control actor, and conformed more to this actor’s judgments. Besides, participants showed a higher skin conductance response (SCR) when perceiving the congruent actor in pain, and favored this actor in prosocial behavior, with increase in SCR predicting whether the imitator was favored. Imitation that was merely temporally contingent did not evoke such effects. Together, these findings suggest that the social effects of imitation seem grounded in motor and affective resonance processes, and that they can be selectively targeted at specific interaction partners.