IMITATION

in psychology, the reproduction or performance of an act the stimulus for which is the perception of a similar act of another animal or person. Essentially, it involves a model to which the attention and response of the imitator are directed. As a descriptive term it covers a wide range of social adaptation. Observers of mammals in their native habitat report the duplication of the activities of the older by the younger members of the species, or of the young of each other in play. Among human beings imitation has been used to describe a wide range of behaviours. It includes such everyday experiences as yawning when others yawn, as well as a whole host of unconsciously and passively learned reproductions of social conduct, and the deliberate adoption of the ideas and habits of others. Studies of infants show that in the second half of the first year they imitate the expressive movements of those about themfor example, raising of the arms, smiling, and attempts at speech. In the second year they begin imitating other people's reactions to objects. As the child grows up, all kinds of models are set before him, most of them determined by his culturephysical posture, language, basic skills, prejudices and pleasures, and moral ideals and taboos. His copying these is determined chiefly by the manner in which his drives are socially and culturally directed and controlled in terms of reward and punishment. The facts of imitation are well established. Uniformity or similarity of thoughts and acts among people does not necessarily mean, however, that these are caused by the same or similar psychological motives or mechanisms. Variations in situations, in drives, and in learned ways of adaptation are often too complicated to be easily explained as imitation. Many earlier psychologists took it for granted that imitation was caused by an instinct or at least by an inherited predisposition. Later writers have viewed the mechanisms of imitation as those of social learning. It is usual, however, to distinguish between imitation caused by simple conditioned reflex, that caused by common trial-and-error learning, and that involving the higher thought processes. See also learning.