If people automatically imitate each other, does that tendency depend on whether their culture emphasizes the group or the individual? This study tested that question across twenty-two nations—and found little evidence that culture changes the basic effect. Individuals tend to automatically imitate others’ actions, and such imitative behavior is often assumed to be a universal phenomenon.

However, most prior research focused on Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic populations, leaving open whether people across different cultures imitate others in a similar manner. Ideomotor theory and the theory of objective self-awareness suggest that imitation is influenced by how much individuals focus on the self versus others.

Because cultural background strongly shapes self-construal, particularly along the collectivism-individualism dimension, cultural context may play a key role in shaping imitative behavior. The study examined automatic imitation in representative samples across twenty-two culturally diverse nations varying in collectivism and individualism, and found no compelling evidence for cultural differences.

The degree to which people focus on others versus the self is deeply rooted in culture, and one established cultural dimension is the distinction between collectivism and individualism. Collectivism relates to an interdependent self-concept, while individualism is characterized by an independent self-concept.

In more collectivistic cultures, people tend to focus more strongly on others and are more concerned with the group’s needs, goals, and interests. In more individualistic cultures, people are more strongly concerned with their own needs, goals, and interests, and thus focus more strongly on the self than on others.

To test this prediction, the study carried out two experiments. Experiment 1 assessed automatic imitation in two nations differing in collectivism and individualism: Vietnam and the USA. Experiment 2 assessed automatic imitation across twenty-two nations that differ in collectivism and individualism, while experimentally controlling for spatial compatibility.

Both experiments received ethical approval from the local Ethics Committee of the Faculty of Human Sciences at the University of Cologne, Germany. To estimate the sample size required to detect the predicted effect, the study conducted an a priori power analysis, because no previous studies had examined the influence of culture on automatic imitation.

The study sought to detect a small to medium-sized effect that still had practical relevance, aiming for an effect size of d equals zero point three for the difference in automatic imitation between the USA and Vietnam. A power calculation with G Power revealed that four hundred seventy participants were needed to detect that effect with ninety percent power and an alpha probability of zero point zero five.

To compensate for preregistered exclusions, the study aimed for a sample size of five hundred participants, with two hundred fifty in each nation. When starting the imitation-inhibition task, participants first received basic information about the task and then completed two exercise blocks.

In the first exercise block, participants responded to randomly appearing number cues across ten trials by pressing and holding the g key with the right index finger and the h key with the right middle finger. When both keys were pressed simultaneously, a fixation cross appeared for five hundred milliseconds, followed by either the number one or the number two.

Participants lifted the index finger as quickly as possible when the number one appeared, and the middle finger as quickly as possible when the number two appeared; the cue lasted a maximum of two thousand milliseconds or until a finger was lifted. After each trial, participants received accuracy feedback and repeated the first exercise block until they reached at least eight correct trials.

Table 3 illustrates the stimuli in Experiment 2, crossing imitative compatibility with spatial compatibility. The images show hand configurations paired with the numbers “1” and “2,” while the labels identify compatible and incompatible combinations along both dimensions.

Participants lifted the right index finger for “1” and the right middle finger for “2,” allowing the experiment to control spatial compatibility while examining imitation inhibition. The results of Experiment 1 indicated no difference in automatic imitation between individuals from the USA and individuals from Vietnam.

That result may suggest that people from individualistic and collectivistic cultures engage in automatic imitation to a similar degree. However, two shortcomings of the applied research design challenged this conclusion.

To address the two shortcomings, Experiment 2 sampled participants from more than two nations and assessed automatic imitation while experimentally controlling for spatial compatibility. The design sampled participants from more than two nations and assessed automatic imitation by experimentally controlling for spatial compatibility within the task.

The study found strong evidence for universal imitative congruency effects. In spatially compatible trials, effects of imitative compatibility appeared across all nations, indicated by all confidence intervals excluding zero.

In most nations, the imitative compatibility effect also appeared in spatially incompatible trials. Overall, the investigation consistently replicated the basic automatic imitation effect in all investigated nations. Individuals from more collectivistic cultures did not differ from individuals from rather individualistic cultures in how strongly they imitated in general.

The Bayesian analyses indicated the strongest evidence for the congruency effect and no compelling evidence for a modulation by culture. These findings support the possibility that automatic imitation is universal, in the sense that people generally have the tendency to automatically imitate other people’s actions.

At the same time, the findings limit the generalizability of theories proposing self-other focus as a key process, because cultural differences in self-other focus did not seem to strongly modulate imitative behavior. The question of cultural differences in automatic imitation had remained open because previous research mainly investigated WEIRD samples.

Across twenty-two nations varying in collectivism and individualism, the investigation found no conclusive evidence for an effect of culture on automatic imitation. The findings hint that automatic imitation is a global, robust phenomenon with little room for strong modulation by culture.

Across all investigated nations, the basic automatic imitation effect was consistently replicated, while Bayesian analyses found no compelling evidence that culture modulated it. The result supports automatic imitation as a global, robust phenomenon.