Empathy, Trust and Contagious Behaviours: The Influence of Different Social Settings

This study investigates whether mimicry of scratching, yawning, lip biting, and face touching is influenced by empathy, trust, gender, or social distance. Twenty participants counted the eye blinks of a confederate in three social distance conditions, namely while watching a pre-recorded video, while having a live interaction, and through a live stream. During these conditions, the confederate performed the four mimicry behaviours. The participants also played investment games to measure trust and they filled in the Interpersonal Reactivity Index to measure empathy. This study did not find a significant relation between mimicry and empathy, nor between mimicry and gender. A negative relation was found between trust and mimicry, with lower levels of trust leading to more mimicry. A significant difference between yawning and face touching was also found, with face touching leading to higher levels of mimicry. However, the social distance condition that one was in did not influence the...Show moreThis study investigates whether mimicry of scratching, yawning, lip biting, and face touching is influenced by empathy, trust, gender, or social distance. Twenty participants counted the eye blinks of a confederate in three social distance conditions, namely while watching a pre-recorded video, while having a live interaction, and through a live stream. During these conditions, the confederate performed the four mimicry behaviours. The participants also played investment games to measure trust and they filled in the Interpersonal Reactivity Index to measure empathy. This study did not find a significant relation between mimicry and empathy, nor between mimicry and gender. A negative relation was found between trust and mimicry, with lower levels of trust leading to more mimicry. A significant difference between yawning and face touching was also found, with face touching leading to higher levels of mimicry. However, the social distance condition that one was in did not influence the amount of mimicry. Adding empathy as a covariate also did not influence the results. Future research is needed to examine other factors that could influence the relationship between social distance and mimicry. For instance, it is possible that how comfortable one feels moderates this relationship or that people suppress behaviours to be polite.Show less

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Empathy, Trust and Contagious Behaviours: The Influence of Different Social Settings