Emotional Mimicry

Abstract

Human mimicry is defined as the imitation or matching of the nonverbal behaviors of others (Hess et al., Mimicry: facts and fiction. In: The social context of nonverbal behavior. Studies in emotion and social interaction. Cambridge University Press, 1999). The present chapter will focus on emotional mimicry, that is, the mimicry of nonverbal behaviors that signal emotions, such as facial (Hess and Fischer, Personal Soc Psychol Rev 17:142–157, 2013) and vocal expressions (Neumann and Strack, J Personal Soc Psychol 79:211–223, 2000) or emotional postures (Magnée et al., Neuroreport 18:369–372, 2007). This chapter first differentiates mimicry from other phenomena that may also result in matched behaviors. This is followed by a brief historical overview and a short discussion of theories of emotional mimicry. Finally, more recent theoretical approaches that focus on top-down effects on mimicry are discussed.