The Importance of Imitation for Theories of Social‐Cognitive Development

Imitative flexibility and the development of cultural learning

“…Despite the fact that imitation is a pervasive feature of children's behavior (Kurzban & Barrett, 2012;Meltzoff & Williamson, 2010;Nielsen & Tomaselli, 2010;Tomasello et al, 2005;Want & Harris, 2002), the current research provides the first integrated theoretical account of how children use imitation flexibly to adjudicate between instrumental and conventional behavior. We hypothesize that the psychological systems supporting learning instrumental skills versus learning cultural conventions are driven by interpreting behavior as instrumental versus conventional.…”

Imitation and Innovation: The Dual Engines of Cultural Learning

“…The capacity to acquire new skills and knowledge by copying others is integral to the development of human cultural learning and is in place early in development [18][19][20]. By 2 years of age, the tendency to overimitate has become so ubiquitous that children will even imitate causally irrelevant actions that they know are unnecessary to achieving an instrumental end goal.…”

Reasoning about ‘irrational’ actions: When intentional movements cannot be explained, the movements themselves are seen as the goal

“…This phenomenon, termed exact imitation, faithful imitation, or overimitation, has garnered considerable recent interest (e.g. Lyons, Young, & Keil, 2007;McGuigan, Makinson, & Whiten, 2011;Meltzoff & Williamson, 2010;Nielsen & Tomaselli, 2010;Whiten et al, 2009;Williamson & Markman, 2006). Evidence suggests that some cases of exact imitation result from errors in causal analysis: Children may repeat the exact actions because they believe these actions to be causally necessary for achieving a desired goal, such as accessing a toy inside a box (Lyons et al, 2007).…”