Effects of Exactitude and Proportions of Imitation on Subsequent Imitation in Children

Abstract

Abstract The effects of four degrees of exactitude and four proportions of imitations by an adult observer on first and second grade boys and girls were assessed in two experiments (N = 60 in each experiment). For both experiments a color sorting task was used. Experiment 1 included five experimental conditions: exact imitation, two-thirds imitation, one-third imitation, and nonimitation of the children's selections on a given trial, and modeling-only. Experiment 2 also was comprised of five conditions: exact imitation of the child on 100%, 67%, 33% and 0% of the trials and modeling-only. The major finding was that most children did not reliably imitate the adult's modeling responses unless she had exactly (exact imitation condition, Experiment 1) and consistently (100% imitation condition, Experiment 2) imitated their prompted responses during the previous induction trials. The results are discussed in terms of the reduction of uncertainty hypothesis and of the stimulus aspects of the adult's responses.