Reference Paper
The Chameleon Effect: The Perception-Behavior Link and Social
Interaction
Tanya
L. Chartrand and John A. Bargh
(Digital Object Identifier: 10.1037/0022-3514.76.6.893)
Overview of the Paper
Non-conscious mimicry of
postures, mannerisms, facial expressions, and other behaviors of one’s
interaction partner is referred as the chameleon effect. The chameleon effect
is such that one’s behavior passively and unintentionally changes to match that
of others. The authors suggest that perception-behavior link is the mechanism involved.
In this paper the authors perform three experiments to prove their hypotheses. This
paper is cited for more than 1500 times according to Google scholar.
In the first experiment, each participant
talked with two different confederates separately. The confederates acted differently
in each session. Behavior of confederates was varied from smiled/not smiled or
rubbed face/shook foot. After the experiment behavior of the participants were analyzed.
The result of the experiments supported the authors’ hypothesis that
individuals passively took on the mannerisms and facial expressions of those of
around them without the intention or reason to do so.
In second experiment, the authors
wanted to see whether behavior matching increases the change of liking the
conversation, and create a sense of smoother interactions. The experimental
results supported the hypothesis that mimicry increases liking and fosters
smooth, harmonious interactions.
In third experiment the authors
wanted to see whether everyone is involved in same degree of behavioral and
postural mimicry, that is, show the same degree of chameleon effect. Their
result proved that individuals with greater tendency to take the perspective of
others are more likely to involve in behavioral mimicry.
Evaluation and Validity of the Paper
On the experimental data of the
authors conducted a repeated measure analysis of variance (ANOVA) on the number
of times participants engaged in the mannerisms per minute for the first
experiment. On the second and the third experimental data, the authors perform
statistical approach to prove their hypotheses.
Improvement Scopes
One extension of this paper will
be to model an automated system which automatically detects the chameleon
effect of human behavior, even when the behavior mimicry occurs in most minimal
circumstances.
Further Reading
One of the interesting articles, which are cited by this paper, is “Coordinated movement and rapport in teacher-student interactions”, by F. J. Bernieri [2] (Digital Object Identifier: 10.1007/BF00986930). In this paper, 19 teaching dyads of high school students were measured for their interpersonal coordination and rapport.
[1] T.
Chartrand and J. Bargh, “The chameleon effect: The perception–behavior link and
social interaction.” Journal of personality and social psychology, vol. 76, no.
6, p. 893, 1999.
[2] F. J. Bernieri, “Coordinated movement and rapport in
teacher-student interactions.” Journal
of Nonverbal Behavior, 12, 120-138.
No comments:
Post a Comment