When competition merges peopleʹs behavior: Interdependency activates shared action representations

Previous research suggests that friendly, cooperative situations cause one to integrate a co-actorʹs actions into oneʹs own action system. Departing from an interdependency perspective, we predict the activation of shared action representations even in hostile, competitive situations as a result of attending to the intentions of the co-actor. To test this, in Experiment 1 we manipulated the interdependency between actor and co-actor in a joint Simon task and observed a stronger activation of shared action representations in a cooperative as well as competitive context compared to an independent context. Experiment 2 replicated the competitive context effect on activation of shared action representations and provided additional evidence for the mediating role of attending to others’ intentions by taking into account the individual tendency to attend to others’ intentions. Together, our findings suggest that interdependency merges peopleʹs behavior even in competitive contexts, which we argue encourage actors to attend to others’ intentions.