Temporal Closeness Promotes Imitation of Meaningful Gestures in Face-to-Face Communication

Abstract

The present research investigated how temporal distance affects imitation of gestures during a conversation. According to construal level theory, psychological closeness (vs. distance) leads to preference for more pictorial and embodied (vs. symbolic and amodal) forms of communication as well as to greater context sensitivity. We thus hypothesized that people are more sensitive to the contextual meaning of gestures and show more imitation of meaningful (vs. meaningless) gestures when primed with temporal closeness (compared to distance). Participants (N = 91) were assigned to the role of a job interviewer for an internship that would begin in 1 week (vs. in 1 year) and interacted with an ostensible applicant who displayed various meaningful and meaningless gestures. When the internship was to start in 1 week, participants imitated meaningful gestures more often than meaningless gestures. When the internship was to start in 1 year, participants imitated both gesture types equally frequently. This finding indicates that people are more likely to embody verbal statements of an interaction partner when feeling psychologically close to the subject of the conversation.