Fairness modulates non-conscious facial mimicry in women

Abstract

In societies with high cooperation demands, implicit consensus on social norms enables successful human coexistence. Mimicking other people's actions and emotions has been proposed as a means to synchronize behaviour, thereby enhancing affiliation. Mimicry has long been thought to be reflexive, but it has recently been suggested that mimicry might also be motivationally driven. Here, we show during an economic bargaining game that automatic happy mimicry of those making unfair offers disappears. After the bargaining game, when the proposers have acquired either a fair or unfair reputation, we observe increased angry mimicry of proposers with an unfair reputation and decreased angry mimicry of fair proposers. These findings provide direct empirical evidence that non-conscious mimicry is modulated by fairness. We interpret the present results as reflecting that facial mimicry in women functions conditionally, dependent on situational demands. © 2012 The Royal Society.