Chapter 12 – Mirroring And Building Of Rapport

Summary – Chapter 12

In this chapter we found that mirroring is one of the quickest and most efficient ways to build rapport with other people. It can be done consciously to gain an advantage and if done properly will go without noticed. It is effective to create liking, acceptance and formulate bonds. We discussed the chameleon affect where unconscious mimicry of postures, mannerisms, facial expressions, and other behaviours occur between people of like minds. We looked at various studies showing that even purposeful mirroring has positive effects, creates and reveals liking in others, and helps gain approval. We found that proper mirroring is unlike the childhood game “copy-cat” where we imitate to irritate.

Proper mirroring, we found, works best by subtly picking up on unconscious gestures such as foot shaking, body scratching, face or hair touching or changes in posture. We discussed that mirroring that includes more dramatic gestures like leaning in, crossing legs, or folding arms, must always be done undetected lest it cause irreversible damage or negative thoughts. Echoing was compared to mirroring, with one key difference. That is, we found that echoing happens when similar postures were taken up, but only after some time had elapsed, rather than immediately as in mirroring. Echoing was therefore described as a more subtle way to build rapport. We found that mirroring can help find common ground during negotiations by creating cooperation and empathy instead of deception.

We also talked about what issues can arise to inhibit mirroring which includes resistance from inward looking people who define themselves by whom they are rather than their associations with others, self monitors who tend to obey their own internal regulators instead of modifying themselves by environment, and the final reason was outlined as outright disagreement. We discussed how mirroring can be matched to create perfect flow through changing dialect, speech rate or tempo, pitch, tonality, voice inflection, use of words and even accent and is called “communication accommodation theory.” We defined perfect speech patterns as “pacing” where information flows uninterrupted and in rhythm. Next we solved the puzzle as to why our pets look like our kids and couples look like each other, how our bosses and superiors call the shots and we should only sometimes mirror them, and how women mirror more than men overall.

Who Mirrors More, Men Or Women?

Research conducted in 1981 by researcher Marianne La France out of Boston College found that women are much more likely to mirror others than men, and the more feminine the women the greater their mirroring. This isn’t surprising at all given the nature of mirroring. As we have covered thus far, mirroring is a form of empathy and rapport building. Mirroring is also a form of submission because one person must initiate positions first, and the other must follow. Women are nurtures by nature and so tend to want to build relationships, one of the tools they use more proficiently is mirroring.

Further research suggests that men are four times less likely to mirror other men, than women are to mirror another woman. Women have also been found to frequently mirror men, whereas men rarely, or only reluctantly, mirror other women, with only one exception, that being during courtship. The reason for this lies in Erno Herman’s research with Leiden University in Netherlands who in 2006 discovered that the administration of testosterone to subjects reduced empathetic behavior through facial mimicry. As mirroring requires an emotional connection in the form of empathy, estrogen rather than testosterone, is a more facilitative hormone. This gives us vital clues to the role of mirroring, and brings us back full circle to the core issue dealt with here, which is that mirroring is a form of rapport building, of which men are less prone to take advantage of.

The fact, as we have covered extensively in this chapter, remains that mirroring can be a great skill in most all facets of life. If you don’t already have it as a part of your repertoire, you should, and if you are a man, should consider it strongly because chances are you don’t do it naturally. Women rate men who display more facial emotions as more caring, intelligent, interesting and attractive which is freely reported by women especially during courtship. This trend naturally extends throughout other areas of life, especially business, but a certain degree of minimizing of expressions should be used when men deal with other men. The research tells us that men tend to rate men who mirror facial expressions in a negative light, describing them as more effeminate. Along the same lines, women who adopt more serious facial expressions when interacting with men, will be seen by them as more intelligent. Thus, to appeal to the opposite sex, the rule of thumb is to use “sex swapping characteristics” whereby we bend toward the sex’s preferences to create more similarity. In other words, men should appear a bit more feminine when interacting with women, and women should appear a bit more masculine when interacting with men.

Men are at an inherent mirroring disadvantage though as researchers have found that they can make fewer than one third the facial expressions that a woman can. What they lack for in facial expressions, though, they make up for in emotional expressions through the body. Therefore, reading body cues is a much better area to consider when reading men. The lack of facial expressions in men, which might be seen as a natural disadvantage, is turned into dominance because men appear less emotional and more “in control”, appearing to maintain their “cool” under more circumstances than women. This doesn’t mean that men fail to experience emotions, because brain scans tell us otherwise. It just means that men are better able to hide their emotions from the rest of us. Women shouldn’t be fooled into thinking men aren’t listening or even empathizing with them simply due to their pan-faced expressions. Women should though, be more watchful of men’s body language, that which happens in areas other than their face, to read their emotions and when they mirror should follow what happens with their arms and legs rather than what happens in their faces which will only be minimal. Conversely, men should do their best to mirror women’s faces as best they can, and make up for whatever expressivity is lacking through other body language channels.

Who Is In Charge Of Mirroring?

An employee enters his boss’s office as he has called a meeting to discuss the possibility of a pay raise. The employee sits down and raises his case. He has been there for several years and feels that he is due for some form of compensation for his loyalty. As he states his case, the subordinate employee appropriately mirrors his boss’s subtle nuances, he touches his face when he does and fixes his hair, and leans forward when he does. As the employee hits on a particularly sensitive issue, his overtime commitment, which the boss has been firm about being nearly mandatory for the position, the boss quickly moves back into a full body steeple by leaning back with his hands locked behind his head and crosses his legs in a figure four. What should the employee do? The answer is simple, he should concede this stance to his boss as its obvious through his body language that he’s not willing to let this issue slide. When it comes to mirroring, it is always best to use it for rapport building, and not to induce hostility. The boss wins when it comes to dominance and should the employee mirror his steeple, would suffer, perhaps not immediately but at a subconscious level this body language will grind on his boss. Eventually, and if repeated with consistency, the boss would sense something wasn’t right which might lead to even worse hours or job details. The boss would only perceive his negative feelings about his employee as “dislike” or that “something isn’t quite right.” If the goal was to usurp his position and take his job, the employee might consider mirroring his stance to set an air of equality or superiority. Similarly, two high ranking individuals should mirror each other to signal that they hold similar power and won’t be easily pushed over.

A dominant person always has more choice when it comes to mirroring than less dominant people. A boss that wants to build rapport with his employee can acceptably let his guard down and mirror his actions. This can be particularly handy when the goal is to welcome a new worker whom is particularly tense or nervous. The boss should still refrain from picking up nervous cues, but he should feel welcome to mirror any other gesture. Therefore, when considering the use of mirroring, it is important to note the relative status in the hierarchy. The rule of thumb is that the most dominant individual calls the shots in mirroring, and so long as gestures aren’t dominant displays, others should feel free to follow to successfully build rapport.

Why Our Pets Look Like Our Kids And Couples Like Each Other

Why is it that married men and women look similar to each other? Do we subconsciously choose partners that look like us, or is something else at play? You probably at least suspect by now that some element of body language is involved, and you’d be right. A 1987 study by Zajonc and colleagues from the University of Michigan set out to discover if couples really to look alike and why this is so. They had subjects compare photographs of married couples when they were first married to photographs after twenty-five years of marriage. The results showed that there was an obvious similarity within couples, that is, they looked alike, and it was also found that couples that had greater facial similarity tended to report greater happiness.

When couples live together they begin to look alike, and this trend happens over time, as the researchers discovered, since new couples had less facial similarity than did older couples. This was explained due to the tendency to mirror one another and empathize with our partners emotions. This causes facial musculature to become increasingly more toned in similar areas as our partners. It is these expressions that create wrinkles in specific patterns around the eyes, mouth and forehead, which in turn carve our faces into ones that mirror our spouse. With time, the even the root facial expressions become the norm for each and happen with or without the spouse being present. This phenomenon isn’t isolated to our spouses, it can be found in our children, or anyone else that spend a great of time with us. It has been said that our personality is the average of the five people we spend the most time with. Perhaps this also extends to our facial expressions! Mirroring is a very profound force in our lives and we should note and correct our bad habits in our expressions. When greeting your spouse, or children do you smile gleefully or is your face expressionless or worse, does it scowl?

The appearance of our pets is an entirely different matter since animals have very restricted ability to move their faces and the emotions they experience don’t come across to us in the same way that it does with people. So why is it that our pets look like us, but more so like our children? The answer lies in neoteny, for one, and secondly due to selection preference. Pets through extensive breeding tend to have more neotenized features. For example, their eyes are often droopy, their tails and ears lay flat instead of standing erect and they have soft fuzzy fur. Dogs through eons of artificial selection pressure have retained only a select few traits of their wolf ancestors especially in its adult form. Humans much prefer dogs that appear “cute”, play fetch, leap and bound, and wrestle to dogs that attack and kill prey. It should be noted though, that some masters do relate to this type of animal and adopt similar pets. Neoteny explains why dogs look like children, and our interests, purpose, or intention for the dog selects the breed while our own physical appearance influences which dog breed we eventually choose. In other words, we choose dogs in our own unique image and likeness because we relate to them. This is why we find aggressive tattooed owners with pitbulls, dainty pink-loving celebrities with toy dogs or “tea cups” and why tall skinny people choose bigger lengthy dogs like greyhounds.

When Mirroring Creates Flow

We're both "the captain!"

We’re both “the captain!”

Matching speech patterns is an effective way to build rapport and create flow and it includes changing dialect, speech rate or tempo, pitch, tonality, voice inflection, use of words and even accent. This is what is called the “communication accommodation theory” and it has been heavily researched. It also forms a part of neurolinguistic programming (NLP) which was covered previously. The theory’s main proposition is that during interactions, people modify their communication behaviour and patterns to more closely resemble the person with which they are trying to gain the most from. Gains in this context can include social approval, employment, or to build friendships and rapport. NLP also goes much deeper than just mirroring speech patterns to include mirroring other facets of a person’s traits.

The theory says that people can also differentiate their speech patterns so as to appear more dissimilar, and thereby create division in personalities or ideas. As is the case with all forms of mirroring, similarities attract. Whereas a significant portion of mirroring involves body positions, verbal mirroring can also be potent. Accents are immediately recognized and when they appear they immediately conjure thoughts of dissimilarity. Mirroring language patterns is a good way to quickly reduce differences and show a willingness to interact positively. Mirroring in language can include matching humour type, frequency and style. If speech is free of humour, than to connect with that person, dropping humour altogether would be advantageous, but if they lace personal humour or self deprecating humour then using a few jokes yourself can help build a connection. Similarly, matching analogy use, the use of questions, matching chattiness or matter of factness of the conversation, use of hand gestures, eye contact and even sentence structure can build rapport quickly. Far from being a copy-cat game, it’s a subtle matching of the speech patterns preferable to your counterpart and adopting them yourself. Even if we don’t consciously use this technique to build rapport, subconsciously we do it anyway, especially if we like the person. Effective use of NLP can build comfort, relaxation and create familiarity. Perfected, the technique will create instant friendships and lifelong bonds. At worst, its use will lead to a lowering of barriers between people and a greater likelihood of being welcomed.

When two people match speech patterns exactly or nearly, we can this “pacing.” Conversation will appear to flow uninterrupted and information will be shared backwards and forwards between the two people. Pacing can include more than just verbal actions. Regulators such as head nods, gestures and micro movements call all work together to create a rhythm. Speed of speech is one important factor to maintain. Speaking too quickly can put pressure on people as they will feel that it is difficult to properly express their views and opinions. Anyone who’s conducted an important interview over the phone with a broken connection with someone they’ve never meet in person knows how hard it is to maintain pacing. The pauses created by the poor connection leads people to jump in to speak despite the fact that the other person hasn’t yet reaching their conclusion. This creates a choppy, disjointed, cumbersome, and even painful conversation. Twins and family members are best at pacing, as are close friends. Rapport is when closeness is developed making people more alike in their thought process, than different. Speech matching is a technique that recognizes the differences in communication styles between people, but rather than dwelling on these differences, forces people to accept and even incorporate these traits into their own speech to quickly build rapport with others.

High order NLP in speech and rapport requires much more attention than this book can ever give it, so this brief summary was only meant as a primer for future research. If this kind of technique fascinates you, I highly recommend reading further, it is a very illuminating area of study.

When Mirroring Can Backfire

Mirroring can backfire around people who want to dominate instead of build rapport. Your boss who takes you aside and wants to put the “rivets to you” isn’t going to respond to mimicry. In fact, trying to mirror him is likely going to make matters worse. In most cases, a dominant boss who displays dominant body language is not interested in employing someone equally as dominant. The default condition, or rule of thumb, to working with dominant people, unless lead otherwise (by your boss), is to show submissive postures. Fight dominance in superiors with submission, that is, hold your legs together, arms inward and hands on your lap.

There are a few exceptions when dominance should be fought with mirroring such as when we wish to rise in ranks by building equality with our bosses or wish to compete head on with other dominant people for positions or perks. Other times a boss will require someone specifically to hold a position of dominance, so will be looking for someone who reminds them of themselves. Bosses will seek these people for higher management. Lawyers can and should posture dominantly to each other. For them it can work to thwart challenges. It is expected in lawyers, and in other professions, to fight fire with fire, but in normal circumstances, mirroring will only raise the hackles of others further.

A second related instance where mirroring is not advised is during confrontation and aggression and this defines our second rule of thumb which is to avoid mirroring in hostile situations. To avoid a full blown fist fight, diffuse aggression with submissive postures. This doesn’t mean you can’t come out the winner, it just requires a different approach. More than anything it requires defining winning in a different way than traditional. In other words, walk away unscarred, alive and you’ve won!

The final caveat to mirroring is to use it only during win-win negotiations and avoid it during win-lose negotiations. Win-lose situations are when one side clearly wins and the other looses. Poker is a win-loose situation where one person wins the chips directly from another person, whereas win-win situations happen anytime prices have room for flexibility such as negotiating on the price on a piece of carpet, a car, or a house, where once the price is agreed upon both parties will benefit. Other arrangements that are win-win are partnerships that involve no money at all, but rather an equal input of labour. Therefore, our final rule of thumb is to only use mirroring when there is give and take involved, or when the task includes cooperation beneficial to both sides. The caveat, of course, which was mentioned previously, is that all mirroring must always go unnoticed for it to be effective.

What Stops Mirroring?

Because mirroring is so efficient and useful to us, it should naturally happen across all people in equal proportions and remain consistent across time, but this is far from true. While differences in connectivity happen between various groups of people or cliques, we also feel more connectivity to certain individuals within a group. Therefore, mirroring will have various strengths across various pairings. Over time our goals and needs change too, and so too do our opinions and ideals. So as we develop, our relationships to people also change. The level of rapport we feel with another person affects the level of mirroring, and a lack of liking can even stop mirroring dead. There are many factors that affect mirroring or lack thereof such as inward versus outward looking people, high versus low self monitors, and the goals desired. If mirroring should suddenly turn cold or fail to start at all, we should be aware of possible explanation just in case it is something we can control or fix.

Inward looking people are those that define themselves specifically by virtues or characteristics attributed directly to them. Inward looking people call themselves intelligent, tall or friendly. Outward looking people, on the other hand, create their identity by their social role, the groups they belong to, their friends and relationships. Someone who sees themselves outwardly will say they are a daughter, a mother of a son, an aunt and the coach of a soccer team. Outward looking people will also be more likely to affiliate with others, and will therefore tend to partake much more in mirroring. Inward looking people will be found to resist mirroring, and extremely inward looking people can even become uncomfortable with mirroring. Extreme inward looking people who wish to maintain their identity will show their discomfort by consistently modifying their body positions to become different than their counterparts so as to clearly maintain a line of separation.

Mirroring is also affected by another personality trait called the desire to “self monitor.” Self monitoring is defined as the desire or ability to regulate oneself to fit into any given environment. “High self monitors” are more likely to change their behaviour in lieu of the situation and seem to be less consistent across context. This personality type is more likely to mirror others. “Low self monitors” are just the opposite, and remain pretty much the same across most situations. They don’t tend to feed off others or try to please them by acting differently in order to fit in. They seem less interested in “belonging” to groups and seem hold the same values across settings. Naturally, this type of person tends to mirror others much less.

The final reason for mirroring inhibition stems from having different goals. When ideas differ we want to send a clear message that our minds don’t agree. Mirroring under perceived disagreement can become particularly discomforting and put people on edge. Testing general agreement without using risky verbal dialogue can be done by mirroring our counterpart and verifying the degree to which they accept imitation. If they quickly adopt new postures, than there’s a good chance that they disagree.

Mirroring is reserved for those that are highly motivated to get along with others due to their personality traits coupled with the rewards that are in it for them in particular.

Using Mirroring In Negotiations

Negotiation finds itself in all walks of life. Even small children know that negotiation is important as they work to secure toys and privileges from parents and other children, although sometimes they revert to brute force and temper tantrums! Adults focus on bigger ideas, and negotiate for jobs, salaries and sales. Part of your occupation likely involves some form of negotiation on a daily basis but even if it doesn’t, most people find that negotiation finds itself in their personal lives as well, if not just to secure a better deal on a mattress or a watch at the hockshop.

We soon learn that our ability to influence, persuade, and interact with others play a large role in the final outcome and within this social game are liking, trust and therefore rapport. He who can control these factors best, will secure the large piece of the pie! Negotiations can be stressful affairs because we are almost dealing with a limited resource in some respect or another and this increasing the propensity for competition. It is the element of competition that further breeds distrust and conflict. Having methods to dilute these negative elements are of vital importance.

One of the key factors in negotiations is the desire to withhold information especially as it applies to more novice deal makers. We naturally expect deception and competition in deal making and so we prepare for the worst, but in actual fact, this preconception leads us to destroy the odds of coming out of the affair on the upside. Rather, research shows that it is the sharing of information that creates cooperation, builds trust, and influence others such that they see your side and empathize with you. Ultimately this empathy is what leads to positive outcomes for both parties, within the limits of constructive possibilities for both parties, of course. When negotiating, we must still balance cooperation and information sharing within the realms of the game such that we don’t give up too much information or reveal the outer limits that we are prepared to submit as loses to our negotiating partner. But this does not mean we shouldn’t be upfront about our net positions, as there is always a possibility that both parties can find mutual benefit, but if neither party shares information, how would anyone know what is at stake?

This brings us to mirroring as an effective tool to bring negotiators quickly onto the same page without using risky or damaging dialogue. In a 2008 study by Maddux and colleagues individual negotiators in an imagined negotiation scenario where instructed to subtly mirror the actions of the other. It was found that mirroring helped them secure a better outcome and allowed them to perform better as a whole than negotiators who were instructed to focus more on their own strategy and where no mention of mirroring was given. The subjects that mirrored in this experiment created more value for themselves under the parameter of the study and that benefit did not come at the expense of their opponents. The study suggests that mirroring creates more information sharing which lead to a greater ability to bend on concessions and hence formulate more positive outcomes for each party.

In their second study, they used two groups once again. One was instructed to mirror and the other was instructed to use their own strategy. In this case however, the subjects either acted as a buyer or seller and they were negotiating the purchase of a gas station. In the scenario, which was cleverly devised, there was no overlap in the price with which the seller was willing to accept and of which the buyer was willing to pay, making the negotiation more than about price alone. Some key outside factors that played into the negotiation was that the seller was keen to leave quickly to travel caused by burnout from running the gas station, but that upon his return he would require employment from the purchaser to recover some of his expenses. This was compatible with the interests of the buyer who wanted to hire managers to run the station in the future. The deal hinged upon the desire of the seller to divulge this information and to what degree, if any, either party would drop or raise their closing price. Not surprisingly, ten of fifteen groups where buyers were instructed to mirror led to an acceptable deal, whereas only two of sixteen reached a deal where the buyer did not. They also cross referenced the level of mirroring with deal success and found that as mirroring increased, so too did deal making. As a positive side effect, trust also increased with mirroring.

It’s obvious from these studies that mirroring can have a profound positive effect on negotiations. They can open the channels of communication and release valuable information between parties resulting in creation of value, deal making and trust. When no mirroring happens, deal making suffers, but when mirroring happens both parties stand to benefit.

What To Mirror To Gain Favours

When people's bodies are out of sink, the differences of opinion are amplified.

When people’s bodies are out of sink, the differences of opinion are amplified.

Proper mirroring is far from the game we play as children. The goal of kid’s is to irritate their opponent with exact copying of gestures even expressions and word, whereas the goal of adults is to formulate agreement and rapport. In adults, necessarily, more subtle mirroring must follow. In the experiments listed above, the researchers set to mirror only those actions which occur subconsciously, those that happen out of normal awareness. Movements such as foot shaking, body scratching, face or hair touching or changes in posture are good ways to start the mirroring process. Your goal should always be to avoid getting caught consciously mirroring someone else since being detected will create negative feelings more so than if no mirroring was done at all. Motions such as leaning in, crossing legs and folding arms can also be used, but must be done with caution since these are much larger motions and can be more easily detected.

Echoing which is like mirroring where similar body postures are replicated, but of which happen sometime later, is a technique that makes the rapport building process more subtle. In echoing, postures and gestures are not concurrent with what is going on with others, but instead happen after some time has elapsed. To be effective, echoing happens within thirty seconds to a minute of separation, but can even happen with several minutes of separation, where only subtle rapport is felt.

Where body positions are fluent, yet echoed, and bodies seem to jive as if in an elaborate dance and where conversation flows smoothly we find “total synchrony.” We say that these people are on the same “wavelength.”

Some ways we mirror with our bodies:

[A] Shifting weight from one foot to the other foot or keeping the weight on the same foot.
[B] Leaning on a bar top or up against a wall or other structure.
[C] Crossing the legs in the same direction or opposite direction when facing each other.
[D] Keeping the legs uncrossed.
[E] Gesturing with the hands similarly.
[F] Drinking in unison or holding drinks with the same hand.
[G] Placing both hands, or just one hand, on the hips.
[H] Leaning in, or leaning out.

Research Into Purposeful Mirroring

A 1999 study by Tanya Chartrand and John Bargh, showed that forced mirroring had a positive effect on liking. In this study, half of the time researchers either mimicked or did not mimic subjects. The remaining actions and behaviours remained the same across both groups meaning that the only factor being manipulated was either mimicry or lack thereof. The participants who had been mimicked reported a greater liking and reported that the conversation carried on much smoother then what was reported by subjects that did not receive any mirroring.

Another study showed that mimicry arouse spontaneously amongst strangers. In this study, participants were examined interacting on two separate occasions. In the first session the researcher interacted with the subject while purposely rubbing their face and in the second, they shook their foot. Videotapes of the session showed that the participants mirrored the actions of the researcher, that is, when the researcher rubbed their face, they did too, and when they shook their foot, so too did the subject. At the end of the study, when asked of their awareness of their mannerisms the subjects pleaded ignorance to their mimicry. This suggests that imitation when around others is spontaneous and happens without prompting. In other words, we naturally imitate others.

Dutch researcher Rick van Baaren and colleagues in a 2003 study demonstrated that mirroring leads to a greater sense of closeness between people. In this marketing study, body posture and mannerisms of participants was either imitated or not. Subjects that were mirrored rated the researchers significantly higher on a closeness rating scale. Thus, despite feigned mirroring, subjects still reported greater liking. In a second study it was found that tipping size increased by sixty-eight percent simply by verbally repeated the orders of patron and in a third study, individuals were more likely to help someone who had dropped items when they had been previously mirrored.

Mirroring can therefore be a powerful and practical tool when used deliberately as evidenced by the research. The research suggests that the propensity to mirror is an adaptive way to converse more efficiently and smoothly. Several other studies show us that people are both more likely to imitate others whom they like, and also like those of which they imitate. This has implications on persuasion since liking has a profound effect on our influence of others. The research also tells us that others are not normally aware of the mirroring that is happening around them, nor of the effect mirroring has on their actions and beliefs. In essence, mirroring is an effective and powerful tool which can be used to create bonds, build rapport, and in essence, get what we want from others.