When Conventionality isn’t Enough: Three-year-olds Overimitation of Action Sequences

Abstract

Imitation is a universal social learning mechanism. Children are so prone to imitation that they occasionally exhibit “overimitation” – imitation of actions that are superfluous to achieving a goal. One explanation for overimitation is that children believe that there is something causal about these actions. An alternative explanation is that children believe the superfluous actions reflect conventions. The first study addresses these possibilities by investigating whether the conventionality of actions affects children’s overimitation. We reasoned that if children believe that the actor’s superfluous actions are causal, they might overimitate anytime those intentional actions precede the achievement of a goal. However, if children are more concerned about conventional ways of doing things, they might only overimitate superfluous actions when they are being presented as conventions. Participants were allowed to use a novel toy machine after a model performed causally relevant and superfluous actions on the toy. Results suggested that children overimitated more when the model was knowledgeable about the toy machine. This suggests that children do not simply overimitate any intentional actions that precede a goal. Instead, they selectively overimitate when there is evidence that those actions are conventional. The second study examined whether children would overimitate superfluous actions performed after the achievement of a goal. If children view all actions of a knowledgeable model as conventions and view the superfluous actions of an ignorant model as exploratory, they will overmitate more in the knowledgeable condition. Results suggest that children do not significantly overimitate the superfluous actions performed subsequent to goal achievement.