Children's Tendency Research Articles

Effortful control is associated with ethnic minority children's pro-wealth biases and explanations across social domains.

Children's tendency to prefer rich to poor people and to view wealthy individuals more positively has been well-documented, but little is known about (a) the mechanisms underlying this "pro-wealth" bias and (b) the extent to which it holds across various social domains (e.g., friendships vs. school project partners). Using a mixed-methods approach, we examined the development of status-based social preferences in a socioeconomically diverse sample of children from Chinese American immigrant families (N = 169; 7-11 years; MAge = 9.16 years, SD ± 1.05; 87 male, 82 female). We examined the development of these preferences in middle childhood, a period during which aspects of group membership and social stratification are salient, particularly for children of immigrants. Children exhibited preferences for a high-status child over a low-status child across three social domains (friendship, playdate, and school project). Children's open-ended responses explaining their preferences most commonly referenced status-based stereotypes (e.g., "He's more educated, he might know more about the topic") and personal loss or gain (e.g., "I'll get to play with his stuff"). Children higher in parent-rated effortful control exhibited fewer status-based preferences and were less likely to reference status-based stereotypes and personal loss or gain in their explanations. Together, these findings shed light on the complexity and nuance of children's pro-wealth bias, as well as the underlying forces that drive these social preferences. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

An exploratory qualitative study on factors influencing the level of agreement in symptom reports in child-caregiver dyads.

Clinicians often rely on caregiver proxy symptom reports to treat cancer-related symptoms in children. Research has described disagreement between children's and caregivers' symptom reports. Factors influencing the level of agreement is an understudied area. Thus, this study aimed to examine potential factors contributing to the level of agreement between symptom reports provided by children and their caregivers. Sixteen child-caregiver dyads participated separately in semi-structured interviews after completing a brief symptom measure independently using an electronic device. Child and caregiver quantitative symptom responses were reviewed in real-time and incorporated into the semi-structured interview. Sample characteristics and the level of agreement between symptom reports were calculated using descriptive statistics. Transcribed participant interviews were analyzed using content analysis. Nearly half of child-caregiver dyads exhibited a moderate (37.5%, n = 6) or low (18.75%, n = 3) level of agreement on the abbreviated symptom measure. Qualitative analysis identified 5 themes: recognizing symptoms, experiencing symptoms, communicating symptoms, re-assessing and treating symptoms, and influencing individual and relationship factors. Influencing individual, including a child's tendencies or personality traits, and relationship factors intersected the other themes, partially explained their symptom perceptions, and served to facilitate or hinder symptom communication. Symptom communication is an important part of the symptom cycle, comprised of symptom recognition, experience, and management. Individual and relational factors may influence discrepancies in symptom perceptions between the child and caregiver. Clinicians and researchers should consider developing interventions to enhance symptom communication and promote collaboration between children and their caregivers to address symptom suffering during cancer treatment.

The efficacy of picture vs. word danger cues in reducing imitation of dangerous actions in children.

Children are naturally curious and often have limited self-control, leading them to imitate both safe and dangerous actions. This study aimed to investigate whether dangerous cues could effectively inhibit children's imitation of hazardous behaviors and to compare the effectiveness of picture cues versus word cues in reducing this imitation. Seventy-six children were divided into two groups: one group received picture cues, and the other received word cues. Both groups observed an agent grasping an object and were instructed to perform a corresponding keystroke response when a number appeared. A comparable group of adults was also included for reference. The results demonstrated that picture cues were significantly more effective than word cues in reducing the children's tendency to imitate dangerous actions. These findings suggest that picture cues are a more effective method for preventing imitation of risky behaviors in children, which has important implications for improving safety education and accident prevention strategies through the use of visual danger cues.

Probability errors in children's judgements about the likelihood of social characteristics.

The studies reported here investigated mechanisms underlying children's tendency to commit the conjunction fallacy (judging that a conjunction of two events is more likely than one of the events in isolation) when judging people's characteristics. Study 1 investigated these errors in 4- and 5-year-olds (N = 58) using a newly developed social judgement task in which children judged whether a conjunction or one of its elements would apply to a protagonist. Children made conjunction fallacy errors at chance level. Study 2 (N = 71) replicated these findings using an adapted version of the task, in which children separately judged the likelihood of the conjunction and each of its events. Study 3 investigated age-related changes in conjunction fallacy errors in a sample of 148 children aged 4 to 11 years old and 130 adults. This study also investigated how providing background information on the protagonist influenced error rate. Unlike younger children, 10- and 11-year-olds committed the conjunction fallacy at chance level in the absence of background information, but providing information consistent with the likely component of the conjunction significantly increased their error rate. Adults' error rate also significantly increased after the introduction of background information. Across all three studies, conjunction fallacy errors were unrelated to cognitive and social-cognitive abilities, such as verbal ability, theory of mind, and inhibitory control (Studies 1 and 2), and prejudice and hindsight bias (Study 3). These findings suggest that it is only in the second decade of life that children use social information to inform their judgements about people and that social decision-making errors are not determined by core aspects of cognitive and social-cognitive development. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Assistance in Building Positive Character in Social Media for Orphanage Children

Children are a golden age in their growth, so that various information that comes in both verbally and visually will be recorded well, therefore children aged 2-13 years need to receive assistance and supervision over all their activities. Since the COVID-19 pandemic hit the world, all learning activities have changed to online learning, as a result of online learning, there has been a change in children's attitudes. This change is due to children accessing social media a lot and receiving less guidance from their parents, resulting in excessive use of social media. For children and teenagers who have parents, monitoring will be possible, but for children and teenagers in orphanages, do they receive monitoring, assistance, and supervision from parents? Therefore, in this community service activity, the researcher wanted to know more about monitoring the use of social media by children in orphanages. Several games were carried out to determine the extent of children's use of social media, and as a result, the games could divert children's tendencies to use social media.

She made it with her friend: How social object history influences children's thinking about the value of digital objects.

Two studies examine how social object histories from collaborative experiences influenced North American children (N = 160, 5-10 years) thinking about the value of digital objects (48% male/51% female; 51% White/24% Black/11% Asian). With forced-choice judgments, Study 1 found (moderate-large effects) that children viewed digital and physical objects with social histories as more special than objects without such histories. On a 10-point scale, Study 2 found (large effects) that children rated digital objects with positive social histories as more special than objects with negative ones. Overall, the studies found that children's tendencies to use object history to understand object value extends into digital contexts. They also reveal how an unexplored kind of history-social history-affects judgments.

The relationship between children’s rumination and parental rumination, worry and depressive symptoms

IntroductionRumination is a transdiagnostic phenomenon that is linked to psychological and physical symptoms not only in adulthood but also in childhood. Several distal and proximal factors are believed to underlie the development of ruminative tendencies, with parental characteristics and modelling being among those with a potential association with the increased levels of children’s rumination.ObjectivesThe primary aim of the study was to investigate the link between rumination in children and parental functioning, including rumination, worry and depressive symptoms. Additionally, we aimed to test the association between rumination and psychological and somatic health in a sample of healthy children and early adolescents.Methods153 children (87 girls, mean age = 10.74; SD = 0.91 years) and their parents (130 females, mean age = 42.65; SD = 4.08 years) participated in the study. For children, Kid Rumination Interview (KRI; Baiocco et al., 2017) was used, alongside the assessment of nine subjective health complaints. KRI employes 4 images to measure the frequency of rumination. Self-reported questionnaires were also completed by parents to report on worry, rumination, and depressive symptoms.ResultsContrary to our expectations, there was no significant association between children’s rumination and parental rumination (r = .06, p = .506), worry (r = -.02, p = .850) and depressive symptoms (r = -.01, p = .979). Psychosomatic complaints in children exhibited a positive albeit weak association with parental depressive symptoms (r = .17, p = .046). Regression analysis revealed that the frequency of rumination occurring in the four situations associated significantly with psychosomatic symptoms (β = .266; t = 3.321; p = .001) after controlling for sex and age.Conclusions Our findings are in line with previous studies demonstrating the relationship between rumination and psychosomatic symptoms in older adolescent samples. However, parental perseverative cognitions and depression were unrelated to ruminative tendencies in children. Nevertheless, the modest sample size and the employment of a different assessment approach compared to self-report questionnaires may have influenced our findings.Disclosure of InterestNone Declared

ANALISIS TANTANGAN PEMANFAATAN ALAT DIGITAL DALAM PENDIDIKAN PADA ANAK YANG CENDERUNG MENGHABISKAN WAKTU UNTUK GAME ONLINE DI MI AT-TARBIYAH SUMBERASIH

This research aims to analyze the challenges of using digital tools in education for children who tend to spend time playing online games at MI AT-Tarbiyah Banjarsari, Banjarsari District. Sumberasih. In the digital era, the use of digital tools in learning is becoming increasingly important. However, children's tendency to spend time playing online games can be a barrier to the effective use of digital tools in educational settings. This research method uses a qualitative approach with data collection techniques through observation, interviews and documentation studies. The research subjects were teachers, parents and students of MI AT-Tarbiyah Banjarsari District. Sumberasih has a tendency to spend time playing online games. The research results show that there are several challenges in using digital tools in children's education at MI AT-Tarbiyah Banjarsari. Factors such as parents' lack of understanding of the benefits of digital tools in education, limited access to technology, and the strong appeal of online games are the main obstacles. This research recommends the need to increase parents' understanding of the benefits of digital tools in education, the active involvement of teachers in developing interesting educational content, and the development of school policies that support the positive use of digital tools. In this way, it is hoped that we can overcome challenges and increase the effectiveness of the use of digital devices in improving the quality of education for children who tend to spend time playing online games.

The role of parental maladaptive emotion socialization in the risk process for negative urgency and drinking behavior in adolescence.

Negative urgency (the tendency to act rashly when experiencing negative emotions) is a robust risk factor for a number of problem behaviors, including early adolescent drinking. Little is known about the factors that precede the development of negative urgency, and hence the full etiology of this component of risk. The current study aimed to investigate the possibility that facets of childhood maladaptive emotion socialization (the tendency for children's expressions of emotions to be met with punishment, minimized, or invoke a reaction of distress from their parents/caretakers) increases risk for the development of negative urgency and drinking behavior. Self-report measures of negative urgency, subfacets of maladaptive emotion socialization, and drinking behavior were collected during the 2021-2022 academic year from a sample of 428 high school students (mean age = 14.7, SD = 0.09, 44% female), assessed twice over the course of a semester, reflecting a 4-month longitudinal window. Distress emotion socialization predicted increases in negative urgency, minimizing predicted decreases in negative urgency, and punitive did not provide significant prediction. Additionally, results found that higher levels of both negative urgency and distress emotion socialization increased adolescents'likelihood of having tried alcohol. These processes were invariant across race and gender. The present study may inform the future creation of prevention and intervention efforts aimed at reducing maladaptive emotion socialization and increasing adaptive emotion socialization. Successful reductions in negative urgency as a consequence of increased adaptive emotion socialization may then lead to decreases in adolescent drinking and other impulsigenic behaviors.

SOSIALISASI BAHAYA GAWAI DAN TAMAN EDUKATIF SABAGAI UPAYA MENGURANGI KECANDUAN GAWAI PADA ANAK SEKOLAH DASAR DI SDN BUNULREJO 04 KOTA MALANG

Gadget addiction in children has increased since the COVID-19 pandemic. The transition to normal times after the COVID-19 pandemic has made it difficult for children to switch from the habit of using devices, causing laziness for school. This encourages efforts to divert children's habits in using devices. SDN Bunulrejo 04 is one of the schools in Malang which is located at Jl. Warinoi No. 20, Bunulrejo, Blimbing. This school is one of the schools that currently conducts face-to-face learning. The number of complaints from parents about their children who are addicted to gadgets is a problem that needs to be overcome. The problem of device addiction needs to be resolved to minimize the effects of device use on children. The proposer and partners will seek steps to divert children's tendency towards devices with fun play alternatives at school so as to encourage children to be diligent and miss school. The solution offered to solve the problem at SDN Bunulrejo 04 is the creation of an educational park that facilitates children to play while learning so as to create a fun play environment so that children miss school. The expected outcome of this solution is the creation of an educational park so that it can reduce device addiction in children and the return of children's enthusiasm for face-to-face schooling which in turn can improve children's learning outcomes at SDN Bunulrejo 04.

Using popular culture to fill in the gaps in public health knowledge – the case of school toilets

Abstract Background Avoiding going to the toilets during the school day has serious implications on children's health and education. Concerns about using the toilets may also lead to reduce intake of fluid, resulting in dehydration and associated dizziness, fatigue and poor concentration, compromising children's education as well as their overall well-being. Yet, there is limited evidence on the reasons behind children's tendency to avoid using the school's toilets. To address this paper presents the representation of school in popular culture, as a way to understand how children perceive school toilets. Methods Popular culture play a significant role in shaping perceptions of places and people, serving as the primary way in which they learn about people's experiences. Thus, the way the toilets are represented in popular culture such as books or films may influence adolescents’ use of public toilets, even if they are not aware of that. This paper explores some films, young adults books and children books to identify the narratives around school toilets as portrayed in popular culture/ Results The narrative of school toilets in popular media can be divided to three main themes, toilets as a place that provides safety and privacy from the prying eyes of both peers and the authorities; toilets as a space for illegitimate activities, aggression and bullying; spaces where sub-cultures and anti-establishment activities emerge. While these themes are not mutually exclusive, each has its unique aspect in the perception and representation of the role that school toilets play in children's lives. Discussion This presentation will help shaping the conversation about a public health problem that is rarely discussed. It will shed a light on the perceived role of public toilets and will help finding way to address and alleviate concerns about using toilets in school.

Young children's conceptualization of empirical disagreement

Chinese and American children aged 5–11 years (total N = 144) heard two child informants make conflicting empirical claims about each of 4 scenarios. For example, one informant claimed that a ball would float when dropped in water whereas the other informant claimed that it would sink. Children were asked to judge whether each informant could be right, and to justify their overall judgment. In both samples, there was a change with age. Older children often said that each informant could be right whereas younger children, especially in China, were more likely to say that only one informant could be right. Nevertheless, in the wake of decisive empirical evidence (e.g., the ball was shown to sink when dropped in water), almost all children, irrespective of age, drew appropriate conclusions about which of the two informants had been right. Thus, with increasing age, children differ in their prospective – but not in their retrospective – appraisal of empirical disagreement. Absent decisive evidence, older children are more likely than younger children to suspend judgment by acknowledging that either of two conflicting claims could be right. We argue that children's tendency to suspend judgment is linked to their developing awareness of empirical uncertainty, as expressed both in the justifications they give when judging the disagreement and in their own beliefs about the scenarios. Implications for children's understanding of disagreement are discussed.

Children are eager to take credit for prosocial acts, and cost affects this tendency

We report two experiments on children's tendency to enhance their reputations through communicative acts. In the experiments, 4-year-olds (N = 120) had the opportunity to inform a social partner that they had helped him in his absence. In a first experiment, we pitted a prosocial act (“Let’s help clean up for Doggie!”) against an instrumental act (“Let’s move these out of our way”). Children in the prosocial condition were quicker to inform their partner of the act and more likely to protest when another individual was given credit for it. In a second experiment, we replicated the prosocial condition but with a new manipulation: high-cost versus low-cost helping. We manipulated both the language surrounding cost (i.e., “This will be pretty tough to clean up” vs. “It will be really easy to clean this up”) and how difficult the task itself was. As predicted, children in the high-cost condition were quicker to inform their partner of the act and more likely to take back credit for it. These results suggest that even 4-year-old children make active attempts to elicit positive reputational judgments for their prosocial acts, with cost as a moderating factor.

Language acquisition in a post-pandemic context: the impact of measures against COVID-19 on early language development.

Language acquisition is influenced by the quality and quantity of input that language learners receive. In particular, early language development has been said to rely on the acoustic speech stream, as well as on language-related visual information, such as the cues provided by the mouth of interlocutors. Furthermore, children's expressive language skills are also influenced by the variability of interlocutors that provided the input. The COVID-19 pandemic has offered an unprecedented opportunity to explore the way these input factors affect language development. On the one hand, the pervasive use of masks diminishes the quality of speech, while it also reduces visual cues to language. On the other hand, lockdowns and restrictions regarding social gatherings have considerably limited the amount of interlocutor variability in children's input. The present study aims at analyzing the effects of the pandemic measures against COVID-19 on early language development. To this end, 41 children born in 2019 and 2020 were compared with 41 children born before 2012 using the Catalan adaptation of the MacArthur-Bates Communicative Development Inventories (MB-CDIs). Results do not show significant differences in vocabulary between pre- and post-Covid children, although there is a tendency for children with lower vocabulary levels to be in the post-Covid group. Furthermore, a relationship was found between interlocutor variability and participants' vocabulary, indicating that those participants with fewer opportunities for socio-communicative diversity showed lower expressive vocabulary scores. These results reinforce other recent findings regarding input factors and their impact on early language learning.

Apakah Program Keluarga Harapan Mampu Mengurangi Pekerja Anak di Masa Pandemi COVID-19?

The COVID-19 pandemic can be an economic shock for low-income households. Several studies have shown that child labor is a strategy used by households to cope with economic shocks. This shock will exacerbate the phenomenon of child labor. Social protection is a form of mitigating the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic which is considered able to reduce the number of child labor. Program Keluarga Harapan (PKH) is one of the social protection programs in Indonesia. This study investigates the impact of Program Keluarga Harapan (PKH) on the phenomenon of child labor during the COVID-19 pandemic. To overcome the problem of self-selection, this study applies the variable of interest as an endogenous variable. By using the recursive bivariate probit method, this study concludes that PKH has no impact on reducing the likelihood of a child becoming child labor during the COVID-19 pandemic. To enrich the research, we also investigated the influence of PKH on the phenomenon of child labor in the period before the COVID-19 pandemic and found that PKH had an impact on reducing the likelihood of a child becoming child labor in the period before the COVID-19 pandemic. Several factors that influence the phenomenon of child labor, such as the characteristics of children, the characteristics of the head of the household, household characteristics, and environmental characteristics, have been shown to influence a child's tendency to become child labor, both in both periods (before the pandemic or during the COVID-19 pandemic) and in only one period.

Transparent robots: How children perceive and relate to a social robot that acknowledges its lack of human psychological capacities and machine status

Children will increasingly encounter, and form social relationships with, social robots. Accordingly, scholars have called for transparency toward children about what social robots are and what they can(not) do to manage children's expectations of this new type of communication partner. Prior research has shown that the way adults present social robots to children can influence children's perception of, and relationship formation with, a robot. To date, however, no studies have yet investigated whether a social robot's own provision of transparent information about its (in)abilities can alter how children perceive and relate to it. To fill this gap initially, we conducted a one-factorial between-subject experiment among 276 children aged 8–10 years old. Children interacted with a robot that either provided them with information about its lack of human psychological capacities and machine status, or not. Exposure to this information decreased children's feelings of closeness toward and trust in the robot. Children's tendency to anthropomorphize the robot mediated the effects of transparency on closeness and trust, while their perception of the robot's similarity to themselves only mediated children's feelings of closeness. Our findings are discussed in light of the ongoing ethical discussion on child-robot relationships.

Prevalence of Eating Behaviors and Their Influence on Metabolic Control of Children With Type 1 Diabetes Mellitus

Background: Since a comprehensive study of eating disorders in children with type 1 diabetes in the Iranian population is necessary, this study aimed to investigate the prevalence of eating behaviors and metabolic control status of children and adolescents with diabetes mellitus. Objectives: The present cross-sectional study aim to explore the prevalence of eating behaviors and their influence on metabolic control of children with type 1 diabetes mellitus. Methods: In this cross-sectional study, all children and adolescents 6 to 12 years old with diabetes were included. First, the prevalence of eating-related behaviors in participants was assessed and recorded. Then the recorded data were statistically analyzed. Results: The Mean±SD age of the study participants was 8.92±1.925 years. One hundred children with food approach scores above 12.29 had food-approach behaviors, and 78 children with food avoidance scores above 11.85 were classified as having food avoidance behaviors. The relationships between food-approach behaviors and hemoglobin A1C (HbA1c) and insulin dose, body mass index (BMI), and lipid profile were significant (P<0.05). Nevertheless, the relationship between these variables and food avoidance behaviors was not significant (P>0.05). Conclusions: High BMI, high insulin dose, increased lipid levels, and high HbA1c are associated with an increased eating tendency in children. Therefore, these children should be evaluated for disordered eating behaviors.

Active Information Acceptance of Children: Differences in Retraction of Information Acceptance Depending on the Discrepancy between Accepted and Observed Information and Presence or Absence of a Question

이 연구는 유아가 정보 제공자에게서 낯선 정보를 수용한 이후, 그와 불일치하는 사례들을 관찰하였을 때 기존의 정보 수용을 철회하는지를 알아보았다. 구체적으로, 이미 수용한 정보 제공자의 정보와 직접 관찰한 사례들이 불일치하는 정도(완전 불일치, 대부분 불일치), 그리고 관찰 사례들을 접하기 전에 기존의 수용 정보에 관한 성인의 질문을 접하는지 유무에 따라 유아가 기존의 정보 수용을 철회하는지를 알아보았다. 연구 참여자는 5세 101명(남: 49명, 여: 52명)이었으며, 온라인 실험으로 이를 알아보았다. 자료는 SPSS 20.0으로 교차분석과 이항검정을 하였다. 결과는 다음과 같다. 첫째, 유아는 이미 수용한 정보 제공자의 정보와 이후에 관찰한 사례들이 완전히 불일치할 때에는 기존의 정보 수용을 철회하지만, 대부분 불일치할 때에는 기존의 정보 수용을 유지하는 경향이 있었다. 둘째, 기존의 정보 수용에 관한 질문을 접한 유아는 대부분 불일치 조건에서 기존의 정보 수용을 철회하는 경향이 있었다. 이 연구를 통해 질문이 특정 조건에서 유아의 능동적인 정보 수용을 도울 수 있다는 것을 알 수 있다.This study aims to investigate whether children retract their initial acceptance of unfamiliar information provided by an informant after encountering inconsistent information. Specifically, the study examines whether the degree of inconsistency between the previously accepted information and the directly observed examples (complete inconsistency, mostly inconsistency), and whether children were exposed to questioning by an adult about their prior acceptance before being presented with the observed examples, influence children's tendency to retract their initial acceptance. The study involves 101 five-year-olds (49 boys, 52 girls) who were interviewed online as participants. The data were analyzed using SPSS 20.0 with cross-analysis and binomial test. The results suggest that children retract their prior acceptance of information when presented with complete inconsistency, but tend to maintain their prior acceptance when there is mostly inconsistency. Furthermore, when questioned about their prior acceptance, children tend to retract their acceptance in mostly mismatched situation. This study provides valuable insights into children's information acceptance and highlights the role of questioning in promoting active information acceptance under a specific condition.

Seeing the pandemic through children's eyes: Exploring Turkish children's views on COVID-19 pandemic by focus-group discussions.

The direct and indirect effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on children and youth people are well documented. Little is known about children's experiences of the pandemic in their own words. We aimed to explore Turkish children's experiences and views about the pandemic, across private and public educational systems. Six focus group discussions were conducted online with 30 children aged between 7 to 18 years in 2021. Children were enrolled through snowball sampling technique according to developmental age groups. A thematic analysis was conducted. We identified five themes: Compliance with public health measures about preventing the spread of COVID-19, changes in daily routines, emotional responses to the pandemic, distance education, and adaptive responses. Overall, children were well informed and receptive to the public health preventive measures with the exception of older children's tendency to disregard physical distancing with friends. They reported frustration with those who did not comply with measures and believed that the authorities should strictly enforce public health requirements. Emotional responses comprised fear of family members and themselves being infected, anxiety produced by the uncertainty of the virus, and the loss of social support. There was a perceived disparity between students from public and private schools regarding academic self-competence. Positive aspects of the pandemic included positive interactions with family members and the acquisition of new hobbies. Although most children acknowledged the support of their parents to deal with challenges, children of health workers were particularly isolated in terms of emotional support. Our findings offer additional insights and validate previous research on the negative and positive effects of COVID-19 from the child's perspective across private and public educational systems. This study contributes to global advocacy efforts aimed at understanding the impact of the pandemic on children.

“The chug is coming through!” “There's two chuggas!”: A longitudinal study of the social function of imitation in children's play with siblings and friends

AbstractImitation is argued to have an important affiliative function in social relationships. However, children's tendency to imitate different play partners during naturalistic play and associations with social understanding have been overlooked. We investigated the frequency and context of imitation in a longitudinal study of 65 focal children (T1: M age = 56.4 months, SD = 5.71) during play with their older or younger sibling and a friend in two separate play sessions. Children were observed again approximately 3 years later (T2: n = 46, M age = 94.6 months; SD = 6.6). We coded focal children's verbal and nonverbal imitation of their play partner, their partner's response to being imitated, the context in which imitation occurred (e.g., pretense), and the focal child's social understanding (i.e., mental state references). Verbal imitation occurred more often than nonverbal imitation and was used most often during the contexts of play negotiations and pretense. Although focal children's imitation of both their siblings and friends increased significantly over time, children imitated friends more than siblings at T1. All play partners responded positively (i.e., smiling, laughing) most often to being imitated. Associations between focal child imitation and mental state talk with friends at T2 approached significance. Our findings provide a deeper understanding of the nature of imitation during children's play interactions and support assertions that imitation is a process whereby children build affiliation, mutuality, and shared meanings in their relationships.