Study explores how copying smoking behaviors may affect quitting motivation

The study, published in the International Journal of Psychology, looked at mimicry as a possible part of the social side of smoking. Mimicry means copying another person in subtle ways, such as matching their posture, hand movements, or timing.

The researchers ran two experiments. The journal abstract says the first was conducted in a laboratory and focused on nonverbal mimicry, including physical actions, hand and arm movements, and body posture. The second took place in a natural setting and examined imitation of smoking behavior.

According to the accompanying news coverage, the first experiment included 40 adults who took part in brief interviews about their health lifestyles. For some participants, the interviewer discreetly copied their movements. For others, the interviewer did not do this.

Participants were then invited to a smoking area. The coverage reports that people whose movements had been mimicked smoked an average of 2.5 cigarettes, about twice the amount reported for the comparison group. They also said they liked the interviewer more.

That pattern fits the researchers’ idea that mimicry can act as “social glue.” In everyday terms, being subtly copied may make an interaction feel smoother or more connected. In this study, that greater sense of connection was linked with more smoking during the session.

The second experiment involved 120 participants in smoking areas at Warsaw clubs and pubs, according to the coverage. Participants were assigned to one of three conditions. In one, the experimenter did not smoke. In another, the experimenter smoked in sync with the participant, taking a puff shortly afterward and exhaling in the same direction. In a third condition, the experimenter smoked but did not match the participant’s timing.

The coverage says participants in the synchronized-smoking condition rated their willingness to quit within five years at 2.65 on a 10-point scale, compared with 8.80 in the no-smoking control condition. It also reports that simply having another smoker present, without synchronized behavior, did not lower stated motivation to quit.

The journal abstract reaches a similar overall conclusion: mimicry increased cigarette consumption in the laboratory experiment and reduced the desire to quit in the natural-setting experiment. But the abstract does not provide the detailed numbers, group sizes, timing, or statistical results needed to judge the size and precision of these effects.

Most importantly, the study did not track whether participants actually quit smoking. A lower score on a question about quitting intentions is not the same as a later quit attempt or successful long-term cessation. The experiments suggest that social cues and shared timing may matter in smoking situations, but more research would be needed to test whether changing those cues improves real-world quitting outcomes.