Until a few years ago, when we started making the
early studies in the field of non-verbal communication, it was considered that
when two people are engaged in a very engaging conversation, these
tended to unconsciously imitate some of the movements that the other makes
interlocutor.
indicator to know how deeply an individual is involved in one
conversation is to observe if it imitates our gestures. Of course, there are also
those who ensure that an excellent technique for capturing attention and empathy
of our interlocutor is precisely to imitate some of his gestures. Anyway, a recent study carried out by the University
of California, tried to determine whether to really imitate gestures and i
movement of others is a social technique as assertive as you think or if you can
on the contrary, having a negative effect on our reputation. In other
words, a careful observer might think we are less intelligent and
reliable if it detects that we are imitating the movements of our interlocutor? The researchers asked a group of volunteers
who watched several videos in which interviews were carried out.
Some of the participants saw the videos in which the interviewee showed themselves
cordial while others were shown videos in which the same interviewer
he acted condescendingly. However, the key difference
it consisted in the fact that in some videos the interviewee imitated the movements of the interviewee
(just small gestures like touching a leg or running a hand through your hair)
while in other videos there was no interaction. After viewing the videos the participants had to
evaluate the general competence of the interviewer keeping aspects in mind
like reliability and friendliness. It turned out curious that although on the level
conscious none of the participants recognized having seen the gestures, these
they were essential in assessing who was interviewing. When interviewers imitated the movements of
respondents were considered less competent by the outside observer. For
to confirm these results, the experiment was repeated but this time
blurring the video images so that viewers focused more
on conversation and on gestures. In this case the results were
totally different. Researchers remind us that social life is a lot
complex and that, if we wish to maintain certain statuses, we must stay
particularly beware of who we imitate since a wrong model can cost us
the loss of credibility. Thus, depending on the context and ours
goals, social intelligence sometimes lies in not imitating.
