Chapter 7 Mirror mirror tell me: who is friend and who is enemy?

The meeting was in full swing, discussions were in full swing, and everyone's emotions were high.That's what I like—not the meetings, but the heat.It is a bliss to observe the behavior of my kind.Their faces, arms waving, tone of voice, fists hitting the table, interesting way of communicating, and of course, there are many other things hidden behind those words.I watched in silence, enjoying it.Sitting next to me is a young colleague who has just come up with a good idea, although obviously not everyone agrees.Some people think it's great, while others call it "ridiculous" and "inexperienced", and immediately push it down and move on to the next topic.But the chairman of the general meeting wants to listen to everyone's views before letting everyone vote.

I saw the colleague sitting next to him hide a conference attendance sheet under a pile of papers, quietly draw plus and minus signs behind the names of the attendees, expressing support and opposition to his proposal respectively.Apparently, by the time the plus signs reached a certain number, he would have asked the chairman for a vote.The two old guys who opposed the proposal (excuse me, dear colleagues) sat firmly across from us, while the man next to them was silent and hadn't expressed the slightest attitude yet. My poor neighbor is hesitating whether to put a plus or a minus after his name, waiting for the silent man to speak, but he just keeps silent. "Draw a minus sign." I whispered in his ear.The neighbor was terrified when he saw his little trick was exposed. "How do you know?" he asked quietly. "You can tell by his arms, his head, the way he drinks his coffee and raises his eyebrows." The colleague looked at me very angrily.If it weren't for our age gap, he would definitely scold me and treat me like nothing in the next meeting. "He didn't say anything!" he whispered to me. "Son, that's a mirror image, just draw a minus sign, he opposes your proposal." The chairman looked in our direction unhappily, and found that "some colleagues are having a small meeting below."So, I had no choice but to explain to him one by one during the break between the meetings.

Mirroring behavior is one of many behavioral fossils that has existed for a long time and is hardly recognized by anyone, but it is a very interesting phenomenon worth studying for behavioral biology.On the one hand, human beings want to show their differences, and those who are stronger or think they are stronger will clearly express their attitude by sending strong signals.Whoever is afraid of something will also send out a signal; whoever feels that others are inferior to himself will be betrayed by a look down with sympathy.On the other hand, when there is no difference between people or when they don't want to be distinguished, they will also show it through behavior, mostly by imitating each other's attitude or posture.People imitate each other and project each other's behavior from the "mirror". This is called "mirror behavior" in biology, and some people call it "echo behavior"; It sounds more like the name of a disease.

If people love each other, it may be falling in love with each other, or it may be just ordinary mutual approval, which can be seen through their mirror image behavior.They don't use words, but imitation, what they want to say is: "Look, to make it clear that we are on the same level, I would like to crawl under your skin, but it is difficult, so I will imitate you .I try to emulate you as much as I can so that we are more or less one person." Well, I know that sounds ridiculous, but that's the basis of this behavior.In a restaurant, you can see which couples are loving each other and which ones are fighting with their feet under the table by maximizing mirroring behavior, because the posture and movement of the latter can be very different.

"How do you know that person objected to my proposal?" the colleague asked me in a spy-like whisper, stirring his coffee to hide that he wanted to hear me tell about the subversive theory. "Because the way he crossed his arms and crossed his arms is exactly the same as those two old guys who opposed your proposal. Those two guys have made it very clear that your proposal is worse than rubbish, and the guy who didn't speak passed the same Send a signal that you are on the same front as them." It seems that my words are not convincing enough, he took a sip of coffee, and said: "So, you just judged it based on his arm? Thank you . . . ” “No,” I said, “it is obvious that the way his head is positioned and moved is imitating your opponents. And his eyebrows, every time an opponent raises his eyebrows, he Do the same. These are very small movements, microscopic movements, barely noticeable, but they also happen in mirroring behavior, but you hardly see it. Did you notice that every time he drank coffee At the same time, the appearance of picking up the cup is almost exactly the same as that of the two people. We call this "mirror behavior drinking coffee", for fun." The colleague couldn't laugh, but it was not difficult to understand. The strong resistance in front of him overwhelmed him.He said: "What you said is very interesting, but what's the use for me? Can it help me? Can it be applied to practice? Or just want to create tension during the break atmosphere?"

I sympathized with him and didn't say the following: "You're still young, and you still have a lot of opportunities to submit proposals." I tried to give him some hope, even though I didn't quite believe it myself. "Mirror behavior can also be used in reverse, influencing the other person through artificial imitation. Although the chance is small, you can still imitate the silent person through the control of your own posture and movement. If you can persist for a few minutes, you have a chance Let him subconsciously sympathize with you and thus support you. Some people use this method to please others, such as salesmen. Psychologists also use mirror behavior to gain the patient's trust. If the person who is not talking sometimes notices You, you might change his mind through artificial mirroring behavior. But the chances are really slim, a fat check might work better." My words didn't cheer him up.It seemed that he didn't want to chat with an old colleague who only made fun of his failure in the battle, so he put down his coffee cup and walked back to the conference room.At this time, the chairman also pointed to the slaughterhouse, and a group of executioners followed.

"In view of the sensitivity of the topic and the tense atmosphere, I propose to vote by secret ballot." The chairman said, "Do you agree? Okay, let's distribute the ballots." The secretary sent out the ballots, and took them back for careful counting. "The Chairman voted against it," I said, leaning over to my poor neighbor. "How did you see that? Are they his eyes?" the neighbor asked in a low voice. "No, I peeked this time."