I sound exactly like you. And you. And you.
June 14, 2017 3:50 AM
This question has come up before in MeFi (Which I found rather comforting, that I'm not the only one who does this). But I'd love more input. Details after the jump.
I mimic everyone and everything. If I'm with a friend for some period of time, I'll unconsciously mimic inflection, tone and emphasis, and distressingly, some of their opinions too. I occasionally write for pleasure and my writing varies widely, based on the last influential book I'd read. When I talk to my male boss, my voice is pitched lower, closer to his natural tone. I even mimic family members! This has been brought forcibly home when I realized that the only person who probably knows exactly what I sound like, and my unvarnished opinions, is my best friend. All others are cheap copycat versions of the person I'm interacting with.
This upsets me disproportionately. I've worked hard to feel better rounded off as a person (eg, identifying strongly as a liberal in a family of conservatives etc) and it feels like no person except my best friend would even recognize that, due to my own fault.
Is there a way to fix this or feel less bad about it?
I mimic everyone and everything. If I'm with a friend for some period of time, I'll unconsciously mimic inflection, tone and emphasis, and distressingly, some of their opinions too. I occasionally write for pleasure and my writing varies widely, based on the last influential book I'd read. When I talk to my male boss, my voice is pitched lower, closer to his natural tone. I even mimic family members! This has been brought forcibly home when I realized that the only person who probably knows exactly what I sound like, and my unvarnished opinions, is my best friend. All others are cheap copycat versions of the person I'm interacting with.
This upsets me disproportionately. I've worked hard to feel better rounded off as a person (eg, identifying strongly as a liberal in a family of conservatives etc) and it feels like no person except my best friend would even recognize that, due to my own fault.
Is there a way to fix this or feel less bad about it?
It's completely natural! Looking at speech patterns, linguists call this convergent
accommodation, and it's something that basically everyone does with people they like, want to impress, or just generally have positive feelings about.
There are interpersonal differences in how much people do it: some experiments have found that women do it more than men; others have found differences based on things like general personality traits. You might be on the higher end (or just are better at perceiving when it's happening: that's also been found to vary from person to person), but the process is a very normal, common thing.
This also happens at all levels of speech: from how you pronounce words, to what words you use, to the melody of your voice, your sentence structure, etc., etc. And this also seems to happen in domains that aren't language, but are closely linked to it, like gesture and body movement.
posted by damayanti at 5:10 AM on June 14, 2017
accommodation, and it's something that basically everyone does with people they like, want to impress, or just generally have positive feelings about.
There are interpersonal differences in how much people do it: some experiments have found that women do it more than men; others have found differences based on things like general personality traits. You might be on the higher end (or just are better at perceiving when it's happening: that's also been found to vary from person to person), but the process is a very normal, common thing.
This also happens at all levels of speech: from how you pronounce words, to what words you use, to the melody of your voice, your sentence structure, etc., etc. And this also seems to happen in domains that aren't language, but are closely linked to it, like gesture and body movement.
posted by damayanti at 5:10 AM on June 14, 2017
You do this because humans are literally hardwired to do this. "Imitation and mimicry are pervasive, automatic, and facilitate empathy." And empathy is key to cooperation and our success as a species. It sounds like you are distressed because your empathy is overshadowing your identity, which you have worked to cultivate.
I understand how having your identity challenged, seemingly from within, is distressing. But I'd encourage you to see your ability to empathize as a powerful tool. The conversation you have with your boss is not the voting booth. People will listen to your opinion more closely in the future if they feel truly understood. And just imagine how much more reasonable and cooperative politics could be if we all demonstrated the capacity to see and feel issues from each other's perspectives.
posted by BusyBusyBusy at 5:38 AM on June 14, 2017
I understand how having your identity challenged, seemingly from within, is distressing. But I'd encourage you to see your ability to empathize as a powerful tool. The conversation you have with your boss is not the voting booth. People will listen to your opinion more closely in the future if they feel truly understood. And just imagine how much more reasonable and cooperative politics could be if we all demonstrated the capacity to see and feel issues from each other's perspectives.
posted by BusyBusyBusy at 5:38 AM on June 14, 2017
Super normal. Part of it is a drive to please others, be it because you fear their judgement or you desire their approval or a million other reasons we have very little control over since it happens so fast and subconsciously. If you spend time with theater people, especially, you will notice this mimicry mirroring thing, and also how they exploit it to good effect to tell stories, share ideas, and manipulate people (not usually for nefarious purposes, though every group of performers has its big share of drama).
So that's my first suggestion - try taking some theater or theater-adjacent classes, like toastmasters, improv, dance, circus arts... or watch videos on body language, accents, the arts of storytelling and stage presence. It will make you more aware of it when others do it and give you more control over doing it yourself.
My second suggestion is to keep working on asserting your feelings and your opinions as you live your life, and essentially, aim to please yourself, instead of the people around you. Of course there are plenty of times when you will do both - and if you find yourself never pleasing others when you please yourself, you should focus on finding new friends, but I bet once you become aware of who you're giving preference to you'll find your real self is not so far off from where you are now with the people you care about most.
But again, some amount of this is utterly normal and really important for interpersonal relationships and humans being humans. Please don't think of yourself as a cheap copycat version of anyone, just someone who is comfortable being many different ways and accepting of lots of different people. If you find your identity getting lost, it might help to journal or blog about things you find particularly interesting or infuriating, just to get down your own ideas somewhere concrete, and then you can use that to remind yourself that you don't go away when you shift into a different mode around someone.
posted by Mizu at 5:38 AM on June 14, 2017
So that's my first suggestion - try taking some theater or theater-adjacent classes, like toastmasters, improv, dance, circus arts... or watch videos on body language, accents, the arts of storytelling and stage presence. It will make you more aware of it when others do it and give you more control over doing it yourself.
My second suggestion is to keep working on asserting your feelings and your opinions as you live your life, and essentially, aim to please yourself, instead of the people around you. Of course there are plenty of times when you will do both - and if you find yourself never pleasing others when you please yourself, you should focus on finding new friends, but I bet once you become aware of who you're giving preference to you'll find your real self is not so far off from where you are now with the people you care about most.
But again, some amount of this is utterly normal and really important for interpersonal relationships and humans being humans. Please don't think of yourself as a cheap copycat version of anyone, just someone who is comfortable being many different ways and accepting of lots of different people. If you find your identity getting lost, it might help to journal or blog about things you find particularly interesting or infuriating, just to get down your own ideas somewhere concrete, and then you can use that to remind yourself that you don't go away when you shift into a different mode around someone.
posted by Mizu at 5:38 AM on June 14, 2017
Acting natural is difficult when you feel observed, even by friendly observers.
I once took an acting class based on the work of Uta Hagen -- the instructor had studied directly with Ms. Hagen, in fact. One of the most important exercises was this:
Choose a chore or activity you do at home regularly -- I chose sorting laundry, in the bedroom, before taking it to the washing machine -- and re-create yourself doing that on stage. The goal was to do it unselfconsciously, and to be exactly as you would be while doing it at home. This was incredibly hard!
An important part of the exercise was bringing in a _lot_ of stuff from home, to make you feel as much like you would at home as possible. I brought an actual laundry basket, my actual laundry from a particular day, my bed covering, I don't even remember what else. Then you used the chairs, tables, and other items in the class space to try to re-create the shape of the home space. The exact distance from bed to chair, from bed to dresser, from dresser to door frame.
You set everything up just as at home, only it's on a stage and there are people watching you. Now, these are all actors, who are at least somewhat OK with having people watching and with being on stage, while at the same time taking _this_ class which is about being "real". These are people who want to be doing this, and who want to be able to be themselves.
Everyone struggled with this, and struggled mightily.
The good news that I am bringing you is this: with practice and with conscious effort, we all got better. Maybe not 100% ready-for-theater better (this is really difficult!), but better.
This was especially challenging since most of us didn't have the insight that you have. We couldn't always _tell_ that we weren't being ourselves at first. You can, or you wouldn't have posted this question, so you can be your own guide.
posted by amtho at 5:43 AM on June 14, 2017
I once took an acting class based on the work of Uta Hagen -- the instructor had studied directly with Ms. Hagen, in fact. One of the most important exercises was this:
Choose a chore or activity you do at home regularly -- I chose sorting laundry, in the bedroom, before taking it to the washing machine -- and re-create yourself doing that on stage. The goal was to do it unselfconsciously, and to be exactly as you would be while doing it at home. This was incredibly hard!
An important part of the exercise was bringing in a _lot_ of stuff from home, to make you feel as much like you would at home as possible. I brought an actual laundry basket, my actual laundry from a particular day, my bed covering, I don't even remember what else. Then you used the chairs, tables, and other items in the class space to try to re-create the shape of the home space. The exact distance from bed to chair, from bed to dresser, from dresser to door frame.
You set everything up just as at home, only it's on a stage and there are people watching you. Now, these are all actors, who are at least somewhat OK with having people watching and with being on stage, while at the same time taking _this_ class which is about being "real". These are people who want to be doing this, and who want to be able to be themselves.
Everyone struggled with this, and struggled mightily.
The good news that I am bringing you is this: with practice and with conscious effort, we all got better. Maybe not 100% ready-for-theater better (this is really difficult!), but better.
This was especially challenging since most of us didn't have the insight that you have. We couldn't always _tell_ that we weren't being ourselves at first. You can, or you wouldn't have posted this question, so you can be your own guide.
posted by amtho at 5:43 AM on June 14, 2017
I'm not sure you can change this; and I'm fairly sure you shouldn't even if you could. Particularly the pitch-voice-lower-with-boss thing. But, with regard to opinions, you might want to review why you think something, in order to have it in mind as an easy set of 2-3 reference points, in a situation where you're having trouble engaging in a discussion without folding. I do this and it helps me feel less harassed when in the company of highly accomplished and smart folks with strong opinions that otherwise run roughshod.
posted by fingersandtoes at 6:46 AM on June 14, 2017
posted by fingersandtoes at 6:46 AM on June 14, 2017
Ooh, I often find myself unconsciously reflecting people's speech patterns and intonations, especially if they're very distinct (and new to me), or if I'm immersed in an environment where everyone's got similar patterns. (I came back from a few years in England with an accent, apparently, unbeknownst to me :/) Do you delight in sounds, have a quick & ready ear? Maybe that's fine? (I think it's fine!)
As far as preserving the integrity of your opinions in company - instead of responding immediately, take a few moments to absorb and evaluate what someone's put forward, then take a few more to compose a considered response.
(Physically - maybe you're a leaning-in kind of person? I think literally holding yourself a bit apart from your interlocutor/s might help. Stand strong and tall, and try to feel your connection to the ground, instead of focusing so much on the back-and-forth energy between you and the person you're talking to.)
posted by cotton dress sock at 9:19 AM on June 14, 2017
As far as preserving the integrity of your opinions in company - instead of responding immediately, take a few moments to absorb and evaluate what someone's put forward, then take a few more to compose a considered response.
(Physically - maybe you're a leaning-in kind of person? I think literally holding yourself a bit apart from your interlocutor/s might help. Stand strong and tall, and try to feel your connection to the ground, instead of focusing so much on the back-and-forth energy between you and the person you're talking to.)
posted by cotton dress sock at 9:19 AM on June 14, 2017
I think the part about reflecting people's opinions is the one to focus on and the only one that truly reads like being a different person around different people. Is it mimicry or absorption? Being able to really put yourself into other people's shoes and absorb their thinking can be an extremely good thing; what you'd need to work on is consciously taking those shoes off later, so to speak, and using the insights you get from being "inside" all these different modes of thinking to inform your actual opinions. When you've got a good sense of your own opinion on whatever subject, see if you can imagine to yourself how various other people would react to it, play out to yourself how you might hold true to that opinion in their presence, and practice doing so in reality.
posted by trig at 9:41 AM on June 14, 2017
posted by trig at 9:41 AM on June 14, 2017
Is there a way to fix this or feel less bad about it?
Cultivate more alone time.
Don't spend an excess of time with people you don't like mimicking.
Spend more time with good friends where you feel less need to do this.
I have found no fix for it, but the above approaches have helped me get some headspace where I don't feel like I don't exist in my own right. It can be a strength, if you don't let it make you feel completely twisted out of shape. It actually has a lot of social value for fitting in superficially and it can make learning new languages easier.
posted by Michele in California at 6:31 PM on June 14, 2017
Cultivate more alone time.
Don't spend an excess of time with people you don't like mimicking.
Spend more time with good friends where you feel less need to do this.
I have found no fix for it, but the above approaches have helped me get some headspace where I don't feel like I don't exist in my own right. It can be a strength, if you don't let it make you feel completely twisted out of shape. It actually has a lot of social value for fitting in superficially and it can make learning new languages easier.
posted by Michele in California at 6:31 PM on June 14, 2017
"You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with."
I don't find myself mimicking speech as much lately, so much as thinking. I don't expect to every really solidify on being myself for many more years.
posted by rebent at 6:57 PM on June 14, 2017
I don't find myself mimicking speech as much lately, so much as thinking. I don't expect to every really solidify on being myself for many more years.
posted by rebent at 6:57 PM on June 14, 2017
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by escabeche at 5:07 AM on June 14, 2017