Mimicry enhances one's judgments of the mimicker when it is directed toward the self. However, often interactions do not involve only the participants; observers also judge people, and such judgments are influenced by social identities. So, does mimicry also have positive effects even on observers' evaluations of the mimicker? Furthermore, does that hold even if the mimicker is an out-group member? To answer these questions, we used two video experiments (N₁ = 377; N₂ = 670) to compare mimicry and neutral (no mimicry) interactions between two individuals who were primed to be in either the participant's in-group or out-group. In both studies, we found the expected negative out-group bias when participants observed the neutral interaction but only for competence-related variables. However, such biases were diminished in the mimicry condition, indicating that mimicry, even when it is merely observed and directed at someone else, may alter mimicker-related attitudes stemming from social identities. Our findings therefore contribute to the literature on reducing intergroup prejudice by demonstrating the behavior-based malleability of a negative out-group bias. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

中文翻译：

---

观察模仿者：观察到的互动中的模仿和身份。

当模仿者指向自己时，模仿会增强一个人对模仿者的判断。然而，互动通常不仅仅涉及参与者；观察者也会评判人，而这种评判会受到社会身份的影响。那么，模仿是否也会对观察者对模仿者的评价产生积极影响呢？此外，即使模仿者是群外成员，这是否成立？为了回答这些问题，我们使用了两个视频实验（N₁ = 377；N2 = 670）来比较两个人之间的模仿和中性（无模仿）互动，这两个人被安排在参与者的群体内或群体外。在这两项研究中，我们发现当参与者观察到中性交互但仅针对能力相关变量时，会出现预期的负群外偏差。然而，这种偏见在模仿条件下减少，表明模仿，即使只是观察和针对他人，也可能改变源于社会身份的模仿者相关态度。因此，我们的研究结果通过证明负性群体外偏见的基于行为的可塑性，为减少群体间偏见的文献做出了贡献。（PsycInfo 数据库记录 (c) 2023 APA，保留所有权利）。