Jenny Morse, PhD
Author and CEO

Recently, a few videos on “psychological tricks” have been popping up in my social media feed. One of the tricks that gets a fair amount of attention is that of mirroring. The idea is that if you mirror people’s body language, they are more likely to trust you. For example, if a person reaches for their drink, and then you reach for your drink, the similarity of the action subconsciously suggests that you are alike, which can build trust. So, if the person leans forward, you lean forward; if the person crosses their legs, you cross your legs.

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The goal is not to mimic the person so that it’s obvious or uncomfortable. You don’t want to be at a job interview and have the interviewer ask “Are you imitating me?” And then to answer, “Are you imitating me?” like an obnoxious 6-year-old.

Instead, the idea is that we naturally mimic people we like, which makes them like us more. So, if your gestures follow the other person’s gestures, you are signaling that you are paying attention to them. If you are paying attention to them, the interpretation is that you must care about them. And since caring is one of the essential elements in establishing credibility, the person will interpret your mirroring gestures as an illustration of how trustworthy you are.

Social science has tended to focus on mirroring as an in-person technique. However, we can also use mirroring in our writing to establish and build trust.

For example, if someone—Nico—sends an email to another person—Lizbeth--with the greeting “Hi Lizbeth,” and Lizbeth writes back “Hi Nico,” Nico will be more inclined to trust Lizbeth because they used the same greeting. However, if Lizbeth wrote back “Good afternoon, Nico,” then Nico probably wouldn’t feel as connected to Lizbeth. Not that Nico wouldn’t trust Lizbeth, other signals would determine that, but Nico wouldn’t be as inclined to trust her.

You might also consider using some of the other person’s word choice or sentence structure. For example, if a coworker wrote to me “I think that we should use the auditorium for the presentation because it has more technological support.” I could write something like “That’s a good idea! The IT in that room is great.” Even though it’s a positive response, the words don’t mirror my coworker’s original language. Instead, I could build trust more quickly and effectively by repeating some of their language: “I agree that the auditorium has the best technological support for the presentation.”

Typically, in writing, the person with decision-making power gets to establish the rules of communication. So, if I wrote to my boss, I would most likely not use emojis in my initial message because emojis are not generally considered to be professional. However, if my boss uses emojis in a message to me, then I should use them back to show that we are thinking and feeling similarly about our communication. If the other person uses emojis, you can. If the other person uses slang, you can. If the other person doesn’t use punctuation, you can ease up on yours.

Essentially, just as we do when we are face-to-face, we have a tendency to trust people who are more like ourselves (the Netflix docuseries “Babies” has some great info on why).

So, we can use our writing to show that we are a) paying attention to the other person, b) approving of their choices, and c) making those same choices ourselves, which will help that person’s brain conclude that we deserve their trust.

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