Why Do We Imitate One Another?
Human beings are social animals. We all know this. We need to be able to socialize with each other, and in order to do that, most of the time we have to have similarities. Whether they be the language we speak, a common interest, or even a mutual friend, humans can bond over anything. So why do we often find ourselves copying or even sometimes changing who we are to be able to find commonalities with others?
While being very social animals, humans are also super judgy. If someone is different than society is, we automatically form some kind of bias against them. No one wants to be an outsider. Humans all crave love and validation, so many of us work to conform to society’s standards, even if it means wiping away some of our own uniqueness. This is known as social contagion.
According to assistant professor and writer for Psychology Today, Ralph Lewis M.D., “Social contagion …. It is the spread of ideas, attitudes, or behavior patterns in a group through imitation and conformity (among other factors) [3]”.
The American Psychological Association defines social contagion through processes such as imitation, conformality, and universality. All tactics lead to humans changing who they are to fit in better and be liked more.
Imitation is the act of copying the behavior of another person/group either intentionally or unintentionally. This can range from dressing in a certain way to adopting the same mannerisms as someone else.
To become more consistent with the opinions of any group, many people will conform to what is consistent within said group. Conformity is the changing of one’s opinions, values, views, etc. to better fit in with others.
Universality, the final term listed, is a bit more thought-provoking. The American Psychological Association names it as, “ the tendency to assume that one’s attitudes or behaviors are common to everyone in the group and are permissible ‘because everybody’s doing it,’ as in the case of rule-breaking by a crowd or mob.”
All three terms lead back to peoples’ need for approval from others. Even in ancient times, approval, possibly from a mate or another tribe, ensued survival. If you couldn’t get others to like you, you and your bloodline would simply die out. Even though times aren’t as primal as they were then, approval is really the baseline for most people's actions.
Lewis connects to that idea, speaking of how social contagion can be linked back to basic human traits. “Social contagion is in many ways a side effect of the central place of social learning in human development, group coherence, and culture. Humans are intensely social primates. Observation and imitation of others is one of the most important ways in which we learn (“monkey see, monkey do,” or “aping”).”
The phenomenon of social contagion is one that has been thoroughly researched for centuries and through new studies we are still learning, but there is still much to uncover, for humans are a very psychologically diverse and multi-faceted species.
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