Money and Mimicry: When Being Mimicked Makes People Feel Threatened. Jia (Elke) Liu. University of Groningen. Kathleen D. Vohs

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1 Running head: Money and Mimicry Money and Mimicry: When Being Mimicked Makes Peole Feel Threatened Jia (Elke) Liu University of Groningen Kathleen D. Vohs University of Minnesota Dirk Smeesters Erasmus University Words: 1000

2 Money and Mimicry Mimicry can bond eole by fostering raort and liking (Chartrand & van Baaren, 009). Mimicry s robustly ositive effects might suggest that it aids interersonal interactions uniformly, but we doubted such a suosition. We hyothesized that mimicry could lead to adverse interersonal outcomes by making eole feel threatened, which we tested by introducing mimicry into contexts in which eole are in the resence of a vital and common comonent of modern life: money. Reminders of money elicit a self-sufficient state that is characterized by two motives (Vohs, Mead, & Goode, 006; 008). On the one hand, eole reminded of money eagerly ursue ersonal goals and freedom. They ersist longer than others on difficult tasks and hesitate to ask for hel (Vohs et al., 006). On the other hand, eole reminded of money act as if they are immune to others. They desire solo (as oosed to dyadic or grou) activities and feel indifferent to social exclusion (Vohs et al., 006; Zhou, Vohs, & Baumeister, 009). The existence of two motives suggests that two outcomes could occur when eole reminded of money are mimicked. The motivation to strive for ersonal freedom redicts that money-reminded eole would form unfavorable imressions of a mimicker because they sense that their autonomy is being threatened (Brehm, 1966). The interersonal distancing motivation redicts that mimicry would not affect moneyreminded eole because they would be unresonsive to the mimicker s behavior. Which motive would dominate? Our hyothesis centered on the fact that mimicry has a distinctly affiliative nature, such that if eole resist being interdeendent with others they also resist engaging in mimicry (van Baaren, Maddux, Chartrand, De Bouter, & van Knienberg, 003). Therefore, we redicted that money-reminded eole would

3 Money and Mimicry 3 erceive the affiliation intention exressed by mimicry to be a threat to their ersonal freedom, leading them to resond antagonistically in defense. To test these hyotheses, we asked articiants reminded of money (or not) to evaluate an interaction artner who had mimicked them (or not). Particiants also comleted an imlicit threat measure to assess whether mimicry can elicit a sense of threat. Method Seventy-two undergraduates (36 women) were randomly assigned to condition in a (rime condition: money versus nonmoney) (mimicry condition: mimicry versus non-mimicry) between-articiants design. In the riming hase, articiants comleted filler questionnaires on a comuter. The screen s background deicted either ictures of currency or shells (Figure S1). Next, articiants and a same-sex confederate (unaware of the study s hyotheses and articiants money condition assignment) conversed for 10 minutes. Throughout the interaction, the confederate either unobtrusively mimicked articiants nonverbal behaviors (i.e., matching their ostures and gestures after aroximately s) or did not mimic. The confederate dearted and articiants comleted the remainder of the exeriment on a comuter, starting with an imlicit measure of threat (DeMarree, Wheeler, & Petty, 005). Particiants were told that a word would be flashed onscreen too quickly to erceive it, and that the next screen would dislay a list of words. Particiants were instructed to rely on their gut feelings to select one of the words as their guess of what had been flashed. Trials began with a,000 ms re-mask of Xs, followed

4 Money and Mimicry 4 by subliminal resentation (17 ms) of target words (nonword letters). A 1,000 ms ostmask of Xs covered the target words. Afterwards, four words were resented and remained onscreen until articiants made a selection. Half of the 1 trials contained one otion that was a threat-related word. We summed the number of threat-related words that articiants selected as an indicator of their feelings of threat. Next, articiants rated how much they liked the confederate ( How likable was the other erson? and Would you like to send more time with the other erson? α=.91) on a 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree) scale. They also rated their current mood (Watson, Clark, & Tellegen, 1988). Mood did not vary by condition. Results We tested the rediction that the interaction of money rimes and being mimicked would decrease liking of the confederate and increase feelings of threat. A (rime condition) (mimicry condition) ANOVA on the comosite measure of liking showed that the interaction was indeed significant, F(1, 68) = 9.71, <.01, =.13, Figure 1. In the nonmoney rime condition, articiants liked the confederate more if they had been mimicked than if they had not, F(1, 68) = 4.64, <.05, =.06. In the money rime condition, articiants showed the exected reversal: they liked the confederate less after being mimicked than not being mimicked, F(1, 68) = 5.10, <.05, =.07. A second ANOVA with rime and mimicry conditions as redictors on threat scores also revealed the redicted significant interaction, F(1, 68) = 1.18, <.01, =.15. In the nonmoney rime condition, mimicked articiants selected fewer threatrelated words (M=0.76, SD=0.97) than non-mimicked articiants (M=1.59, SD=1.00),

5 Money and Mimicry 5 F(1, 68) = 4.99, <.05, =.07. Yet in the money rime condition, mimicked articiants selected more threat-related words (M=.4, SD=1.) than non-mimicked articiants (M=1.47, SD=1.07), F(1, 68) = 7.38, <.01, =.10. We tested a mediated moderation model, in which rime condition moderates the effect of mimicry condition on threat scores, which directly influence liking scores. The results showed that threat scores mediated the effect of mimicry condition on liking in both the money, z=-.35, <.05, and nonmoney conditions, z=.01, <.05 (details in online Sulemental Material). General Discussion Being mimicked tyically leaves eole with a warm glow, but this exeriment showed that mimicry can diminish liking if eole have been reminded of money. Money-rimed articiants liked a mimicking interaction artner less than they did a non-mimicking artner, an effect that was due to enhanced feelings of threat. These findings tested which motive involved in self-sufficiency autonomous goal striving versus interersonal insensitivity dominates behavior after the idea of money has been activated. The findings take the sychology of money in a new direction by demonstrating money s ability to stimulate a longing for freedom.

6 Money and Mimicry 6 REFERENCES Brehm, J.W. (1966). A theory of sychological reactance. New York: Academic. Chartrand, T. L., & van Baaren, R. B. (009). Human mimicry. Advances in Exerimental Social Psychology, 41, DeMarree, K. G., Wheeler, S. C., & Petty, R. E. (005). Priming a new identity: Selfmonitoring moderates the effects of non-self stereotye rimes on self-judgments and behavior. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 89, van Baaren, R. B., Maddux, W. W., Chartrand, T. L., De Bouter, C., & van Knienberg, A. (003). It takes two to mimic: Behavioral consequences of self-construals. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 84, Vohs, K.D., Mead, N. L., & Goode, M. R. (006). The sychological consequences of money. Science, 314, Vohs, K.D., Mead, N. L., & Goode, M. R. (008). Merely activating the concet of money changes ersonal and interersonal behavior. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 17, 08 1 Watson, D., Clark, L. A., & Tellegen, A. (1988). Develoment and validation of brief measures of ositive and negative affect: The PANAS scales. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 53, Zhou, X., Vohs, K.D., & Baumeister, R. F. (009). The symbolic ower of money: Reminders of money alter social distress and hysical ain. Psychological Science, 0,

7 Money and Mimicry 7 FIGURE Figure 1: Liking of the confederate as a function of rime and mimicry conditions.