Do Individual and Joint Action Goals Modulate Imitative Response Tendencies?

ABSTRACT: Coordinated social interaction requires people to control their tendencies to imitate each other's actions. Previous research suggests that imitative response tendencies become modulated by the goals to which one's own and others' actions are individually or jointly directed. However, an open question is how different levels of goal representation (ranging from higher-level goals that specify joint or individual action outcomes to lower-level goals encoding own and others' movement features) interact and shape imitative congruency effects during social interactions. To address this gap, we conducted two online experiments, in which participants selected one of two action targets in turn with a virtual co-actor to achieve either individual or joint task goals. We manipulated imitative congr

SUBMITTER: Marschner M 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12785670 | biostudies-literature | 2026

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature