As adults, we might understand that beliefs often spread because people are strongly influenced by their friends, family, and other social connections. However, do we think those influences are strong enough to overrule direct evidence of a friend's unreliability? And do preschoolers expect people to show such biases toward friends and to…

Four studies using a computerized paradigm investigated whether children's imitation performance is content-specific and to what extent dependent on other cognitive processes such as trial-and-error learning, recall, and observational learning. Experiment 1 showed that 3-year-olds could successfully imitate what we call novel cognitive rules…

What do toddlers learn from everyday picture-book reading interactions? To date, there has been scant research exploring this question. In this study, the authors adapted a standard imitation procedure to examine 18- to 30-month-olds' ability to learn how to reenact a novel action sequence from a picture book. The results provide evidence that…

Examined four variables affecting children's resistance to deviation: (1) modeling resistance to deviation, (2) modeling alternative activity incompatible with deviation; (3) availability of alternative activity, and (4) attractiveness of alternative activity. It was concluded that the modeling of behavioral inhibition and incompatible responses…

The effects of modeling and corrective feedback on the conservation of equalities and inequalities were studied. Both training methods were successful in teaching children to conserve. Trained children were also capable of generalizing their learning to new conservation tasks. (CS)

Three experiments examined peer imitation with 14- to 18-month-old infants in laboratory, home, and day-care settings. After a delay, infants imitated actions performed by trained peers. Found that infants' recall of peers' actions was lower for infants imitating actions at home after a two-day delay than for infants imitating actions in the…

Although observational learning by children may occur through imitating a modeler's actions, it can also occur through learning about an object's dynamic affordances- a process that M. Tomasello (1996) calls "emulation." The relative contributions of imitation and emulation within observational learning were examined in a study with 14- to…

The authors argue that imitation is a flexible and adaptive learning mechanism in that children do not always reproduce all of the details they can from a demonstration. Instead, they vary their replications depending on their interpretation of the situation. Specifically, the authors propose that when children do not understand the overall reason…

Presents two studies of elementary school children which suggest that: (1) white children do not conform differentially to black and white models, (2) black and white children do not differ in amount of conformity, (3) blacks conform more to white than to black models, and (4) girls conform more than boys among lower- but not middle-class…

The literature on observer characteristics and imitation was reviewed in an attempt to delineate the role of these variables in the imitative process. (ST)

Twenty first-graders observed an adult model perform a quantity conservation task. The children were then tested on a series of generalization tasks immediately, after one week, and after three months. The results suggested that the social experience of observation appeared to activate a cognitive restructuring of the children's mental operations.…

Deferred imitation of object-related actions was studied at two ages, 12 and 18 months, to examine development of competence in observational learning. Three task categories were investigated: simple/single reiterative, and sequentially coordinated actions. Examination of partial successes at both ages was useful for suggesting phases in…

Preschoolers and second graders observed a model choose his "favorites" in a series of common object trios and were then asked to recall the model's choices. Results indicated that children's level of attention influences their level of learning in an observational setting. (ST)

Observed liberal-stringent model behavior significantly affected both the subject's subsequent self-reward behavior and performance. (Authors)

Two experiments studied five- to eight-year-old children's capacity to resist temptation as a function of observing a deviant model. (CM)