Abstract
Summary The present study was designed to provide empirical evidence for the assumption that children do not imitate an observer because they have been imitated, but that they will imitate any imitative or nonimitative responses which allow them to make perfect predictions of these responses. The study also sought to assess age effects and generalization effects across tasks. A total of 160 children of four grade levels participated. The experiment consisted of four conditions. Two conditions—i.e., modeling-only and nonimitation—did not allow perfect prediction of each of the adults' responses. The two other conditions—i.e., imitation and contraimitation—allowed perfect prediction of all of his responses. The major finding was that children of all grade levels copied the adults' imitative behavior and that the older children also showed an increased tendency to copy his contraimitative behavior. Strong generalization effects across tasks were observed for children of all grade levels and conditions.
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