Descripción del proyecto
Explicar nuestra decisión de confiar o desconfiar
Al tratar con los demás, a menudo utilizamos mensajes biológicos rápidos no verbales, como el mimetismo (una semejanza evolucionada entre dos organismos diferentes) para verificar las emociones, las intenciones, la empatía y el nivel de confianza reales de otra persona. Sin embargo, los psicólogos aún no comprenden del todo bien los procesos y efectos específicos del mimetismo. En este contexto, en el proyecto CoPAN, financiado con fondos europeos, se aspira a utilizar un novedoso marco conceptual de Tinbergen como teoría para explicar qué formas de mimetismo son empáticas y estudiar qué papel desempeñan al tomar la decisión de confiar o desconfiar de alguien. En concreto, se examinarán los factores biológicos y psicológicos para comprender la función, los mecanismos y el desarrollo del mimetismo. En un estudio comparativo con el bonobo, el pariente más cercano a los humanos entre los simios, permitirá al investigador explicar los fundamentos básicos de nuestros mecanismos de conducta prosocial.
Objetivo
Many daily decisions are made through quick evaluations of another’s trustworthiness, especially when they involve strangers. Individuals rely on a partner’s tractable characteristics, including expressions of emotion. These are readily mimicked even down to the physiological level. I here propose to investigate which forms of mimicry are empathic and inform decisions of trust and distrust. The mimicry-empathy linkage has come under discussion with the publication of counter-examples in biology and failures of replication in psychology, making the question of what mimicry entails even more important. The key role emotional expressions play in our daily life positions this revived debate around mimicry at the forefront of emotion science. Scientific advancement in this field, however, demands a completely new theoretical and methodological approach. Therefore, I will place mimicry within the Tinbergian framework. Fundamentally, this means that I will incorporate biological and psychological approaches to the study of mimicry and during dyadic interactions, investigate different forms of mimicry simultaneously, e.g. facial mimicry, contagious blushing, pupil mimicry, and their 1) Function: what they are good for. Using economic games, I will study which mimicry forms are related to empathy and inform social decisions; 2) Mechanism: how they operate on the neurophysiological level; 3) Development: how mimicry develops over the lifespan and which mimicry forms are phylogenetically continuous and shared with the bonobo, our closest living relative and link to our last common ancestor. For the first time, humans and bonobos will be directly compared on the basis of their mimicry and trust. This comparison can revolutionize the way humans perceive themselves when it comes to prosocial behaviour.
Ámbito científico
Palabras clave
Programa(s)
Régimen de financiación
ERC-STG - Starting GrantInstitución de acogida
2311 EZ Leiden
Países Bajos