Evidence for a dual-process account of over-imitation: Children imitate anti- and prosocial models equally, but prefer prosocial models once they become aware of multiple solutions to a task.

ABSTRACT: Children imitate actions that are perceivably unnecessary to achieve the instrumental goal of an action sequence, a behavior termed over-imitation. It is debated whether this behavior is based on the motivation to follow behavioral norms and affiliate with the model or whether it can be interpreted in terms of a behavioral heuristic to copy observed intentional actions without questioning the purpose of each action step. To resolve this question, we tested whether preschool-aged children (N = 89) over-imitate a prosocial model, a helper in a prior third-party moral transgression, but refuse to over-imitate an antisocial model, the perpetrator of the moral transgression. After first observing an inefficient way to extract a reward from a puzzle box from either a perpetrator or a helper, chi

SUBMITTER: Schleihauf H 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8445421 | biostudies-literature | 2021

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature