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The Two Faces of Verbal Mimicry: Does Linguistic Synchrony Predict Positive or Negative Social Outcomes?
Friday, January 29, 11:15 am - 12:30 pm, Capri Rooms 103-106
Chair: Matt L. Newman, Arizona State University
Co-Chair: Marlone D. Henderson, University of Texas at Austin
Language is inherently social, existing principally for the purpose of communication between two or more people. Consequently, conversations are more than the sum of their discrete parts. However, most social psychological studies of language have analyzed it at the individual level—ignoring joint effects. More recently, a handful of researchers have begun filling this gap by analyzing language at the dyad or group level, focusing specifically on the relationship between verbal mimicry and practical outcomes. In this symposium, four speakers from diverse areas of specialization bring together findings that illuminate both the positive and negative consequences of verbal mimicry. On the positive side, Taylor and colleagues analyzed transcripts from real-life hostage negotiations and divorce mediations, finding that negotiations were more likely to be successful when negotiators consistently mimicked each other’s language use. On the negative side, Ireland and Henderson analyzed transcripts of competitive negotiations in the laboratory, finding that dyads tended to argue more and have more trouble reaching agreement when competitors mimicked each other’s language use. Finally, Scissors et al. suggest a middle ground, finding that different manifestations of verbal mimicry predict both high and low interpersonal trust in a multi-round online social dilemma game. Similarly, in separate studies, Gonzales and colleagues found that verbal mimicry is related to greater cohesiveness and task performance in work groups and may be used by individuals as an automatic deception strategy in dyads. Together, these findings suggest that verbal mimicry can be a potent predictor of both positive and negative joint outcomes.
Keywords: Primary = Applied, Secondary = Social
Talk 1 - Linguistic Style Matching Predicts the Outcome of Crisis Negotiations
Authors: Paul J. Taylor1, Sally Thomas2, Stacey M. Conchie2; 1Lancaster University, UK, 2University of Liverpool, UK
This research examined the relationship between Linguistic Style Matching—the degree to which negotiators coordinate their word use—and negotiation outcome. Transcripts of dialogue from nine hostage negotiations (Study 1) and twenty divorce mediations (Study 2) were divided into 6 time stages, and interlocutors' dialogue was analyzed across 18 linguistic categories. Correlational analyses showed that successful negotiations were associated with higher aggregate levels of Linguistic Style Matching (LSM) than unsuccessful negotiations. In the hostage negotiations, this result was due to dramatic fluctuations of LSM during unsuccessful negotiations, with negotiators unable to maintain the constant levels of rapport and coordination that occurred in successful negotiations. In the divorce mediations a similar effect was observed, although the differences were confined to earlier stages of the interaction. Further analyses of LSM at the local turn-by-turn level revealed complex but organized variations in behavior across outcomes in both sets of negotiations. In comparison to unsuccessful negotiations, the dialogue of successful negotiations involved greater coordination of turn taking, reciprocation of positive affect, a focus on the present rather than the past, and a focus on alternatives rather than on competition.
Talk 2 - Verbal mimicry in negotiation: The language of the deal
Authors: Molly E. Ireland1, Marlone D. Henderson1; 1The University of Texas at Austin
The present research examined the role of subtle verbal mimicry in competitive negotiation contexts. Across three studies, increased verbal mimicry as indexed by language style matching (LSM; Niederhoffer & Pennebaker, 2002) was negatively associated with the negotiation process and outcome. Specifically, Studies 1 and 2 established that increased verbal mimicry was associated with a decreased likelihood of reaching agreement in negotiation. Moreover, increased verbal mimicry was associated with less efficiency (more words and time required) when agreement was reached. Study 3 replicated and extended these results, with self-reported contentiousness found to fully mediate the negative relationship between verbal mimicry and likelihood of reaching agreement. Implications for the use of verbal mimicry as a predictor of negotiation outcomes in relatively more or less competitive negotiations will be discussed.
Talk 3 - Trust through Text: Examining Linguistic Similarity and Trust in Text Chat
Authors: Lauren E. Scissors1, Alastair J. Gill1, Kathleen Geraghty1, Darren Gergle1; 1Northwestern University
This work examines how different forms of linguistic similarity, including mimicry, relate to the establishment of interpersonal trust in a text-chat environment. Pairs of participants played an iterative social dilemma investment game and periodically chatted via Instant Messenger (IM) after every five rounds of investment. Initial results (N = 26 pairs) revealed that, within chat sessions, lexical mimicry was significantly higher for high-trusting pairs than for low-trusting pairs, but that lexical mimicry across chat sessions was significantly higher for low-trusting pairs than for high-trusting pairs. Further inquiry and analysis (N = 62 pairs) examined linguistic similarity at two levels: lexical mimicry and semantic similarity. Results revealed that certain types of mimicry (e.g., emoticon mimicry) and semantic similarity (e.g., similar use of positive emotion words) were associated with high levels of interpersonal trust, while other types of linguistic similarity (e.g., similar use of negative emotion words) were associated with low levels of interpersonal trust. Despite previous research which indicates that mimicry and similarity are positively related to relational development, the current findings suggest that not all similarity is beneficial for the establishment of interpersonal trust.
Talk 4 - Using Verbal Mimicry to Predict Positive and Negative Social Processes
Authors: Amy L. Gonzales1, Jeffrey T. Hancock1, James W. Pennebaker2, Lauren E. Curry1, Saurabh Goorha1, Michael Woodworth3; 1Cornell University, 2The University of Texas at Austin, 3University of British Columbia, Okanagan, Canada
The degree to which people synchronize their verbal behavior can reveal important information about social dynamics. In one study, the Linguistic Style Matching (LSM) algorithm was introduced as a measure of verbal mimicry based on an automated textual analysis of function words. The LSM algorithm was applied to language generated during a small group discussion in which 70 groups comprised of 324 individuals engaged in an information search task either face-to-face or via text-based computer-mediated communication. As a metric, LSM predicted the cohesiveness of groups in both communication environments, and it predicted task performance in face-to-face groups (Gonzales, Hancock, & Pennebaker, in press). Another study investigated changes in both the liar’s and the conversational partner’s linguistic style across truthful and deceptive dyadic communication in a synchronous text-based setting. An analysis of 242 transcripts revealed that deceptive conversations were characterized by a higher degree of LSM, particularly when the liar was highly motivated to lie. However, the linguistic patterns in both the liar and the partner’s language use were not related to deception detection, suggesting that partners were unable to use this linguistic information to improve their deception detection accuracy (Hancock, Curry, Goorha, & Woodworth, 2008). The results reveal that this type of automated measure of verbal mimicry can be an objective, efficient, and unobtrusive tool for predicting positive and negative features of underlying social dynamics.
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