Abstract

People spontaneously and automatically imitate the behaviors of other individuals. In the current work we explored how the more general intergroup context could modulate mimicry effects. Participants were preliminary categorized into minimal groups and next they were exposed to an ingroup member who either displayed fair or unfair behaviors toward the outgroup. In addition, some participants were also warned that the outgroup had previously behaved in a discriminatory way. Results showed that when threatened by an outgroup, as compared to a control condition, mimicry toward unfair ingroup members increased. This result is discussed in relation to the possible role of imitation in the regulation of intergroup conducts.