Underlying mechanisms of mimetic desires
(2014) 17th General Meeting of the European Association of Social Psychology — Location: Amsterdam, Netherlands (9.July.2014)
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- Abstract
- Stimuli are evaluated more favorably when perceived to receive others' attention, an effect coined “mimetic desires”. Recent research confirms the social rather than purely attentional nature of this effect in that no increased liking is found with arrow cues. Rather, the effect seems to depend on a communicative gazing sequence and is modulated by social characteristics of the gazing person. The underlying mechanism(s) of these mimetic desires remain however unknown: Do observers like looked-at-objects more because they deduce information about the neutral object from the gaze-cue and/or because they want to fit in with the communicated liking-norm? We addressed this question in two studies. In study 1, we tested the informational influence hypothesis. Participants (n=65) were exposed to a gazing person looking towards two abstract art paintings and looking away from two other paintings and were then asked to indicate the theme of each painting on a bipolar scale (e.g. justice-injustice). Looked-at-paintings were associated with positive themes, whereas looked-away-paintings were not associated with any theme in particular, F(1,64)=7.73, p<.007. In study 2, we tested whether liking of looked-at-paintings would increase with the number of gazing persons looking at them (normative fit). Although participants (n=73) liked looked-at-paintings generally more than paintings looked away from, F(1,72)=3.95, p<.05, this mimetic desire was not moderated by the number of gazing persons, F<1. Taken together, these studies provide first evidence that mimetic desires are based on informational influence rather than normative fit. Implications of these findings for social influence processes will be discussed.
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Treinen, E. (2014). Underlying mechanisms of mimetic desires. 17th General Meeting of the European Association of Social Psychology, Amsterdam, Netherlands. https://hdl.handle.net/2078.5/47312