The Moody chameleon: the effect of mood on nonconsious mimicry

R. van Baaren, D.A. Fockenberg, R. Holland, L. Janssen, A. van Knippenberg

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    Abstract

    Whereas previous findings suggest that mood alters information processing style judgment and strategic behavior, in the present article, the hypothesis is tested that moods influence our non-conscious behavior. In the first study, we observed a correlation between participants' mood and their non-conscious mimicry of a person on television. In the second study, participants were put in either a positive or negative mood and afterwards they watched a video comprising of two episodes, one with a pen-playing experimenter, and one with a non-pen-playing experimenter. Participants were videotaped to see whether they would mimic the pen-playing experimenter. As predicted, we found that only participants in a positive mood mimic the confederate's behavior. Finally, tentative evidence suggesting that the effect of mood on mimicry is mediated by cognitive processing style is discussed. These results support a functional explanation for the effects of mood on information processing and behavior.
    Original languageEnglish
    Pages (from-to)426-437
    Number of pages11
    JournalSocial Cognition
    Volume24
    Issue number4
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - 2006

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