1932

Abstract

Imitation is a deeply social process. Here, I review evidence that children use imitation as a means by which to affiliate with others. For example, children imitate the actions of others more closely when they seek a positive social relationship with them and respond positively to being imitated. Furthermore, children infer something of the relationships between third parties by observing their imitative exchanges. Understanding the social nature of imitation requires exploring the nature of the social relationships between children and the individuals they imitate. Thus, in addition to discussing children's own goals in imitative situations, I review the social pressures children experience to imitate in particular ways, learning to conform to the conventions and rituals of their group. In the latter part of this article, I discuss the extent to which this perspective on imitation can help us to understand broader topics within social development, including the origins of human cultural differences.

Loading

Article metrics loading...

/content/journals/10.1146/annurev-devpsych-033020-024051
2020-12-15
2024-12-08
Loading full text...

Full text loading...

/deliver/fulltext/devpsych/2/1/annurev-devpsych-033020-024051.html?itemId=/content/journals/10.1146/annurev-devpsych-033020-024051&mimeType=html&fmt=ahah

Literature Cited

  1. Asch SE. 1956. Studies of independence and conformity: 1. A minority of one against a unanimous majority. Psychol. Monogr. 70:1–70
    [Google Scholar]
  2. Barr R, Dowden A, Hayne H 1996. Developmental changes in deferred imitation by 6- to 24-month-old infants. Infant Behav. Dev. 19:159–70
    [Google Scholar]
  3. Bavelas JB, Black A, Lemery CR, Mullett J 1986. “I show you how you feel”: motor mimicry as a communicative act. J. Personal. Soc. Psychol. 50:322–29
    [Google Scholar]
  4. Berl R, Hewlett B. 2015. Cultural variation in the use of overimitation by the Aka and Ngandu of the Congo Basin. PLOS ONE 10:e0120180
    [Google Scholar]
  5. Boyd R, Richerson PJ, Henrich J 2011. The cultural niche: why social learning is essential for human adaptation. PNAS 108:10918–25
    [Google Scholar]
  6. Buttelmann D, Zmyj N, Carpenter M 2013. Selective imitation of in-group and out-group members in 14-month-old infants. Child Dev 84:422–28
    [Google Scholar]
  7. Carpenter M, Akhtar N, Tomasello M 1998. Fourteen- through 18-month-old infants differentially imitate intentional and accidental actions. Infant Behav. Dev. 21:315–30
    [Google Scholar]
  8. Carpenter M, Call J. 2002. The chemistry of social learning. Dev. Sci. 5:22–24
    [Google Scholar]
  9. Carpenter M, Uebel J, Tomasello M 2013. Being mimicked increases prosocial behavior in 18-month-old infants. Child Dev 84:1511–18
    [Google Scholar]
  10. Chartrand TL, Bargh JA. 1999. The chameleon effect: the perception-behavior link and social interaction. J. Personal. Soc. Psychol. 76:893–910
    [Google Scholar]
  11. Chartrand TL, van Baaren R 2009. Human mimicry. Adv. Exp. Soc. Psychol. 41:219–74
    [Google Scholar]
  12. Chevallier C, Kohls G, Troiani V, Brodkin ES, Schultz RT 2012. The social motivation theory of autism. Trends Cogn. Sci. 16:231–39
    [Google Scholar]
  13. Cialdini RB. 2001. Influence: Science and Practice Boston: Allyn & Bacon
    [Google Scholar]
  14. Clay Z, Over H, Tennie C 2018. What drives young children to over-imitate? Investigating the effects of age, context, action type, and transitivity. J. Exp. Child Psychol. 166:520–34
    [Google Scholar]
  15. Clay Z, Tennie C. 2018. Is overimitation a uniquely human phenomenon? Insights from human children as compared to bonobos. Child Dev 89:1535–44
    [Google Scholar]
  16. Clegg JM, Legare CH. 2016. A cross-cultural comparison of children's imitative flexibility. Dev. Psychol. 52:1435–44
    [Google Scholar]
  17. Corriveau KH, DiYanni CJ, Clegg JM, Min G, Chin J, Nasrini J 2017. Cultural differences in the imitation and transmission of inefficient actions. J. Exp. Child Psychol. 161:1–18
    [Google Scholar]
  18. Corriveau KH, Fusaro M, Harris PL 2009. Going with the flow: Preschoolers prefer non-dissenters as informants. Psychol. Sci. 20:372–77
    [Google Scholar]
  19. Corriveau KH, Kim E, Song G, Harris PL 2013. Young children's deference to a majority varies by culture. J. Cogn. Cult. 13:367–81
    [Google Scholar]
  20. Deutsch M, Gerard HB. 1955. A study of normative and informational social influences upon individual judgment. J. Abnorm. Soc. Psychol. 51:629–36
    [Google Scholar]
  21. DiYanni CJ, Corriveau KH, Kurkul K, Nasrini J, Nini D 2015. The role of consensus and culture in children's imitation of inefficient actions. J. Exp. Child Psychol. 137:99–110
    [Google Scholar]
  22. Essa F, Sebanz N, Diesendruck G 2019. The automaticity of children's imitative group bias. Cogn. Dev. 52:100799
    [Google Scholar]
  23. Fusaro M, Harris PL. 2008. Children assess informant reliability using bystanders’ non-verbal cues. Dev. Sci. 11:771–77
    [Google Scholar]
  24. Georgiades S, Szatmari P, Boyle M 2013. Importance of studying heterogeneity in autism. Neuropsychiatry 3:123–25
    [Google Scholar]
  25. Hare B, Kwentuensa S. 2010. Bonobos voluntarily share their own food with others. Curr. Biol. 20:R230–31
    [Google Scholar]
  26. Haun DBM, Over H. 2013. Like me: a homophily-based account of human culture. Cultural Evolution PJ Richerson, M Christiansen 75–86 Cambridge, MA: MIT Press
    [Google Scholar]
  27. Haun DBM, Rekers Y, Tomasello M 2014. Children conform to the behaviour of peers; other great apes stick with what they know. Psychol. Sci. 25:2160–67
    [Google Scholar]
  28. Haun DBM, Tomasello M. 2011. Conformity to peer pressure in preschool children. Child Dev 82:1759–67
    [Google Scholar]
  29. Hermann E, Hare B, Call J, Tomasello M 2010. Differences in the cognitive skills of bonobos and chimpanzees. PLOS ONE 5:e12438
    [Google Scholar]
  30. Herrmann PA, Legare CH, Harris PL, Whitehouse H 2013. Stick to the script: the effect of witnessing multiple actors on children's imitation. Cognition 129:536–43
    [Google Scholar]
  31. Hewlett BS, Berl RE, Roulette CJ 2016. Teaching and overimitation among Aka hunter-gatherers. Social Learning and Innovation in Contemporary Hunter-Gatherers: Evolutionary and Ethnographic Perspectives H Terashima, BS Hewlett 35–45 Tokyo: Springer
    [Google Scholar]
  32. Heyes CM. 2001. Causes and consequences of imitation. Trends Cogn. Sci. 5:253–61
    [Google Scholar]
  33. Heyes CM. 2011. Automatic imitation. Psychol. Bull. 137:463–83
    [Google Scholar]
  34. Heyes CM. 2018. Cognitive Gadgets: The Cultural Evolution of Thinking Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univ. Press
    [Google Scholar]
  35. Hobson RP, Hobson JA. 2008. Dissociable aspects of imitation: a study in autism. J. Exp. Child Psychol. 101:170–85
    [Google Scholar]
  36. Hobson RP, Lee A. 1999. Imitation and identification in autism. J. Child Psychol. Psychiatry 40:649–59
    [Google Scholar]
  37. Hoehl S, Keupp S, Schleihauf H, McGuigan N, Buttelmann D, Whiten A 2019. “Over‐imitation”: a review and appraisal of a decade of research. Dev. Rev. 51:90–108
    [Google Scholar]
  38. Horner V, Whiten A. 2005. Causal knowledge and imitation/emulation switching in chimpanzees (Pantroglodytes) and children (Homo sapiens). Anim. Cogn. 8:164–81
    [Google Scholar]
  39. Horowitz AC. 2003. Do humans ape? Or do apes human? Imitation and intention in humans (Homo sapiens) and other animals. J. Comp. Psychol. 117:325–36
    [Google Scholar]
  40. Howard LH, Henderson AM, Carrazza C, Woodward AL 2015. Infants’ and young children's imitation of linguistic in-group and out-group informants. Child Dev 86:259–75
    [Google Scholar]
  41. Kano F, Hirata S, Call J 2015. Social attention in the two species of Pan: Bonobos make more eye contact than chimpanzees. PLOS ONE 10:e0129684
    [Google Scholar]
  42. Kenward B. 2012. Over-imitating preschoolers believe unnecessary actions are normative and enforce their performance by a third party. J. Exp. Child Psychol. 112:195–207
    [Google Scholar]
  43. Keupp S, Behne T, Rakoczy H 2013. Why do children overimitate? Normativity is crucial. J. Exp. Child Psychol. 116:392–406
    [Google Scholar]
  44. Krishnan-Barman S, Hamilton AFC. 2019. Adults imitate to send a social signal. Cognition 187:150–55
    [Google Scholar]
  45. Lakin JL, Chartrand TL. 2003. Using nonconscious behavioral mimicry to create affiliation and rapport. Psychol. Sci. 14:334–39
    [Google Scholar]
  46. Lakin JL, Chartrand TL, Arkin RM 2008. I am too just like you: nonconscious mimicry as an automatic behavioral response to social exclusion. Psychol. Sci. 19:816–22
    [Google Scholar]
  47. Lakin JL, Jefferis VE, Cheng CM, Chartrand TL 2003. The chameleon effect as social glue: evidence for the evolutionary significance of nonconscious mimicry. J. Nonverbal Behav. 27:145–62
    [Google Scholar]
  48. Landsbaum JB, Willis RH. 1971. Conformity in early and late adolescence. Dev. Psychol. 4:334–37
    [Google Scholar]
  49. Leighton J, Bird G, Orsini C, Heyes CM 2010. Social attitudes modulate automatic imitation. J. Exp. Soc. Psychol. 46:905–10
    [Google Scholar]
  50. Liberman Z, Kinzler KD, Woodward AL 2018. The early social significance of shared ritual actions. Cognition 171:42–51
    [Google Scholar]
  51. Luncz LV, Sirianni G, Mundry R, Boesch C 2018. Costly culture: differences in nut-cracking efficiency between wild chimpanzee groups. Anim. Behav. 137:63–73
    [Google Scholar]
  52. Lyons DE, Young AG, Keil FC 2007. The hidden structure of overimitation. PNAS 104:19751–56
    [Google Scholar]
  53. Marsh L, Pearson A, Ropar D, Hamilton A 2013. Children with autism do not overimitate. Curr. Biol. 23:R266–68
    [Google Scholar]
  54. McGuigan N, Makinson J, Whiten A 2011. From over-imitation to super-copying: Adults imitate irrelevant aspects of tool use with higher fidelity than young children. Br. J. Psychol. 102:1–18
    [Google Scholar]
  55. Meltzoff AN. 1990. Foundations for developing a concept of self: the role of imitation in relating self to other and the value of social mirroring, social modelling, and self practice in infancy. The Self in Transition: Infancy to Childhood D Cicchetti, M Beeghly 139–64 Chicago: Univ. Chicago Press
    [Google Scholar]
  56. Meltzoff AN. 1995. Understanding the intentions of others: re-enactment of intended acts by 18-month-old children. Dev. Psychol. 31:838–50
    [Google Scholar]
  57. Nadel J. 2002. Imitation and imitation recognition: functional use in preverbal infants and nonverbal children with autism. The Imitative Mind: Development, Evolution, and Brain Bases AN Meltzoff, W Prinz 42–62 Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press
    [Google Scholar]
  58. Nagell K, Olguin RS, Tomasello M 1993. Processes of social learning in the tool use of chimpanzees (Pantroglodytes) and human children (Homo sapiens). J. Comp. Psychol. 107:174–86
    [Google Scholar]
  59. Nielsen M. 2006. Copying actions and copying outcomes: social learning through the second year. Dev. Psychol. 42:555–65
    [Google Scholar]
  60. Nielsen M. 2009. The imitative behavior of children and chimpanzees: a window on the transmission of cultural traditions. Rev. Primatol. 1: https://doi.org/10.4000/primatologie.254
    [Crossref] [Google Scholar]
  61. Nielsen M. 2018. The social glue of cumulative culture and ritual behaviour. Child Dev. Perspect. 12:264–68
    [Google Scholar]
  62. Nielsen M, Blank C. 2011. Imitation in young children: when who gets copied is more important than what gets copied. Dev. Psychol. 47:1050–53
    [Google Scholar]
  63. Nielsen M, Hudry K. 2010. Over-imitation in children with autism and Down syndrome. Aust. J. Psychol. 62:67–74
    [Google Scholar]
  64. Nielsen M, Mushin I, Tomaselli K, Whiten A 2014. Where culture takes hold: “overimitation” and its flexible deployment in Western, Aboriginal, and Bushmen children. Child Dev 85:2169–84
    [Google Scholar]
  65. Nielsen M, Simcock G, Jenkins L 2008. The effect of social engagement on 24-month-olds’ imitation from live and televised models. Dev. Sci. 11:722–31
    [Google Scholar]
  66. Nielsen M, Slaughter V, Dissanayake C 2013. Object-directed imitation in children: testing the social motivation hypothesis. Autism Res 6:23–32
    [Google Scholar]
  67. Nielsen M, Tomaselli K. 2010. Over-imitation in Kalahari Bushman children and the origins of human cultural cognition. Psychol. Sci. 21:729–36
    [Google Scholar]
  68. O'Sullivan EP, Bijvoet-van den Berg S, Caldwell CA 2018. Automatic imitation effects are influenced by experience of synchronous action in children. J. Exp. Child Psychol. 171:113–30
    [Google Scholar]
  69. Over H, Carpenter M. 2009. Priming third-party ostracism increases affiliative imitation in children. Dev. Sci. 12:F1–8
    [Google Scholar]
  70. Over H, Carpenter M. 2012. Putting the social into social learning: explaining both selectivity and fidelity in children's copying behavior. J. Comp. Psychol. 126:182–92
    [Google Scholar]
  71. Over H, Carpenter M. 2013. The social side of imitation. Child Dev. Perspect. 7:6–11
    [Google Scholar]
  72. Over H, Carpenter M. 2015. Children infer friendship and status relations from watching others imitate. Dev. Sci. 18:917–25
    [Google Scholar]
  73. Over H, Carpenter M, Spears R, Gattis M 2013. Children selectively trust individuals who have imitated them. Soc. Dev. 22:215–24
    [Google Scholar]
  74. Paukner A, Suomi SJ, Visalberghi E, Ferrari PF 2009. Capuchin monkeys display affiliation toward humans who imitate them. Science 325:880–83
    [Google Scholar]
  75. Powell LJ, Spelke ES. 2018. Human infants’ understanding of social imitation: inferences of affiliation from third party observations. Cognition 170:31–48
    [Google Scholar]
  76. Rakoczy H, Warneken F, Tomasello M 2008. The sources of normativity: young children's awareness of the normative structure of games. Dev. Psychol. 44:875–81
    [Google Scholar]
  77. Schmidt MFH, Rakoczy H, Tomasello M 2019. Eighteen-month-old infants correct non-conforming actions by others. Infancy 24:613–35
    [Google Scholar]
  78. Stengelin R, Hepach R, Haun DBM 2019. Being observed increases overimitation in three diverse cultures. Dev. Psychol. 55:2630–36
    [Google Scholar]
  79. Tennie C, Call J, Tomasello M 2009. Ratcheting up the ratchet: on the evolution of cumulative culture. Philos. Trans. R. Soc. B 364:2405–15
    [Google Scholar]
  80. Thelen MH, Miller DJ, Fehrenbach PA, Frautschi NM, Fishbein MD 1980. Imitation during play as a means of social influence. Child Dev 51:918–20
    [Google Scholar]
  81. Tomasello M. 1999. The Cultural Origins of Human Cognition Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univ. Press
    [Google Scholar]
  82. Užgiris IC. 1981. Two functions of imitation during infancy. Int. J. Behav. Dev. 4:1–12
    [Google Scholar]
  83. Užgiris IC. 1984. Imitation in infancy: its interpersonal aspects. The Minnesota Symposia on Child Psychology, Vol. 17: Parent-Child Interactions and Parent-Child Relations in Child Development M Perlmutter 1–32 Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Assoc.
    [Google Scholar]
  84. van Baaren RB, Holland RW, Kawakami K, van Knippenberg A 2004. Mimicry and prosocial behavior. Psychol. Sci. 15:71–74
    [Google Scholar]
  85. van Leeuwen EJC, Cronin KA, Haun DBM 2014. A group-specific arbitrary tradition in chimpanzees (Pantroglodytes). Anim. Cogn. 17:1421–25
    [Google Scholar]
  86. van Schaik JE, Hunnius S 2018. Modulating mimicry: exploring the roles of inhibitory control and social understanding in 5-year-olds’ behavioural mimicry. PLOS ONE 13:e0194102
    [Google Scholar]
  87. Watson-Jones RE, Legare CH. 2016. The functions of ritual in social groups. Behav. Brain Sci. 39:e26
    [Google Scholar]
  88. Watson-Jones RE, Legare CH, Whitehouse H 2016. In-group ostracism increases high fidelity imitation in early childhood. Psychol. Sci. 27:34–42
    [Google Scholar]
  89. Watson-Jones RE, Legare CH, Whitehouse H, Clegg JM 2014. Task-specific effects of ostracism on imitation in early childhood. Evol. Hum. Behav. 35:204–10
    [Google Scholar]
  90. Williams KD. 2001. Ostracism: The Power of Silence New York: Guilford Publ.
    [Google Scholar]
  91. Yu Y, Kushnir T. 2014. Social context effects in 2- and 4-year-olds’ selective versus faithful imitation. Dev. Psychol. 50:922–33
    [Google Scholar]
  92. Yu Y, Kushnir T. 2020. The ontogeny of cumulative culture: Individual toddlers vary in faithful imitation and goal emulation. Dev. Sci. 23:e12862
    [Google Scholar]
/content/journals/10.1146/annurev-devpsych-033020-024051
Loading
  • Article Type: Review Article
This is a required field
Please enter a valid email address
Approval was a Success
Invalid data
An Error Occurred
Approval was partially successful, following selected items could not be processed due to error