ASSOCIATION FOR CONSUMER RESEARCH Labovitz School of Business & Economics, University of Minnesota Duluth, 11 E. Superior Street, Suite 210, Duluth, MN 55802 The Depleted Chameleon: Behavioral Contagion and Self-Regulation Amy Dalton, Duke University Tanya L. Chartrand, Duke University Eli J. Finkel, Northwestern University Interaction partners tend to mimic each other’s nonverbal behaviors without awareness or intent, but what happens when mimicry is poorly coordinated? For instance, if an interactant fails to mimic her partner, how is her partner affected? We propose and find that whether or not interaction partners are coordinated behaviorally can impact success at self-control. This effect is attributed to schema- violation: schema-consistent patterns of mimicry preserve regulatory resources, while schema-inconsistent patterns of mimicry deplete these resources. Consequently, when mimicry is the norm, its absence will render an otherwise-efficient interaction more taxing. In this way, an individual’s nonverbal behaviors can compromise an interaction partner’s success at self-control. [to cite]: Amy Dalton, Tanya L. Chartrand, and Eli J. Finkel (2008) ,"The Depleted Chameleon: Behavioral Contagion and Self- Regulation", in NA - Advances in Consumer Research Volume 35, eds. Angela Y. Lee and Dilip Soman, Duluth, MN : Association for Consumer Research, Pages: 109-111. [url]: http://www.acrwebsite.org/volumes/13514/volumes/v35/NA-35 [copyright notice]: This work is copyrighted by The Association for Consumer Research. For permission to copy or use this work in whole or in part, please contact the Copyright Clearance Center at http://www.copyright.com/.