ArticleScientific reports2023
Only empathy-related traits, not being mimicked or endorphin release, influence social closeness and prosocial behavior.
Article in Scientific reports, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 4 papers.
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Who cites it
4 citing papers in PubMed.
- Association between social activities and cardiovascular diseases: evidence from the CHARLS database.BMC public health · 2026Article
- Empathy is associated with older adults' social behaviors and verbal emotional expressions throughout the day.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Nearsighted empathy: exploring the effect of empathy on distance perception, with eye movements as modulators.Scientific reports · 2024Article
- Social bonding through shared experiences: the role of emotional intensity.Royal Society open science · 2024Article
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Authors and funding
4 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Seminal studies suggest that being mimicked increases experienced social closeness and prosocial behavior to a mimicking confederate (i.e., interaction partner). Here we reexamine these results by considering the role of empathy-related traits, an indirect proxy for endorphin uptake, and their combined effects as an explanation for these results. 180 female participants were mimicked or anti-mimicked in an interaction with a confederate. The effects of being mimicked versus anti-mimicked in relation to empathy-related traits and endorphin release (assessed indirectly via pain tolerance) on experienced closeness and prosocial behavior were assessed using Bayesian analyses. Our results suggest that high individual empathy-related traits increase social closeness to the anti-mimicking and mimicking confederate and to one's romantic partner, as compared to mimicry alone. Results furthermore strongly suggest that high individual empathy-related traits increase prosocial behavior (donations and willingness to help) as compared to mimicry alone. These findings extend previous work by highlighting that empathy-related traits are more influential in creating positive effects on social closeness and prosocial behavior than a one-shot mimicking encounter.
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Registered trials
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