Self-categorization as a basis of behavioural mimicry : experiments in The Hive
Abstract
Introduction Do we always do what others do, and, if not, when and under what conditions do we do so? In this paper we test the hypothesis that mimicry is moderated by the mere knowledge of whether the source is a member of the same social category as ourselves. Methods We investigated group influence on mimicry using three tasks on a software platform which interfaces with mobile computing devices to allow the controlled study of collective behaviour in an everyday environment. Results Overall, participants (N = 965) were influenced by the movements of confederates (represented as dots on a screen) who belonged to their own category in both purposive and incidental tasks. Conclusion Our results are compatible with collective level explanations of social influence premised on shared social identification. This includes both a heuristic of unintended mimicry (the acts of group members are diagnostic of how one should act), and communication of affiliation (based on a desire to make one’s group cohesive). The results are incompatible with traditional ‘contagion’ accounts which suggest mimicry is automatic and inevitable. The results have practical implications for designing behavioural interventions which can harness the power of copying behaviour, for example in emergency evacuations.
Citation
Neville , F G , Drury , J , Reicher , S D , Choudhury , S , Stott , C , Ball , R & Richardson , D 2020 , ' Self-categorization as a basis of behavioural mimicry : experiments in The Hive ' , PLoS One , vol. 15 , no. 10 , e0241227 . https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0241227
Publication
PLoS One
Status
Peer reviewed
ISSN
1932-6203Type
Journal article
Rights
Copyright: © 2020 Neville et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Description
JD, SR and CS received grant ES/N01068X/1 from the Economic and Social Research Council (https://esrc.ukri.org/).Collections
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