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Where Culture Takes Hold: “Overimitation” and Its Flexible Deployment in Western, Aboriginal, and Bushmen Children
Author(s) -
Nielsen Mark,
Mushin Ilana,
Tomaselli Keyan,
Whiten Andrew
Publication year - 2014
Publication title -
child development
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 3.103
H-Index - 257
eISSN - 1467-8624
pISSN - 0009-3920
DOI - 10.1111/cdev.12265
Subject(s) - affordance , copying , perception , object (grammar) , psychology , child development , social learning , cultural learning , developmental psychology , cognitive psychology , social psychology , computer science , artificial intelligence , pedagogy , neuroscience , political science , law
Children often “overimitate,” comprehensively copying others' actions despite manifest perceptual cues to their causal ineffectuality. The inflexibility of this behavior renders its adaptive significance difficult to apprehend. This study explored the boundaries of overimitation in 3‐ to 6‐year‐old children of three distinct cultures: Westernized, urban Australians ( N = 64 in Experiment 1; N = 19 in Experiment 2) and remote communities of South African Bushmen ( N = 64) and Australian Aborigines ( N = 19). Children overimitated at high frequency in all communities and generalized what they had learned about techniques and object affordances from one object to another. Overimitation thus provides a powerful means of acquiring and flexibly deploying cultural knowledge. The potency of such social learning was also documented compared to opportunities for exploration and practice.