Parental models and overimitation in 5-year-old children

Author(s)

Louise Mackie, Leslie-Ann Eickhoff, Eluisa Nimpf, Ludwig Huber, Stefanie Hoehl

Abstract

Individuals often copy another's causally irrelevant actions despite their inefficiency toward goals. The present study investigated the influence of model familiarity on this behavior-known as "overimitation"-with a two-phase overimitation task. We tested whether 5-year-old Austrian children (

N = 52, 28 males) would overimitate their parents more than a stranger when operating a novel puzzle box. First, an inefficient strategy was demonstrated by a parent (or stranger) before the child's first turn on the box; then, an efficient strategy was demonstrated by a stranger (or parent) before the child's second turn. Results showed that children who first saw their parent's inefficient strategy overimitated it slightly more than those who saw the stranger's. After the efficient demonstration, we observed a reduction in children's overimitation of their parent's (but not the stranger's) inefficient strategy. Comparisons to a no-model (baseline) condition revealed significantly higher overimitation scores for our parent-then-stranger and stranger-then-parent conditions in the first phase, but only for the stranger-then-parent condition in the second phase. We also observed children protesting against their parents' efficient demonstration (in favor of the stranger's inefficient demonstration). These results suggest (a) that overimitation can occur in two ways (supporting a dual-process theory) and (b) that children selectively overimitate depending on model familiarity. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Organisation(s)

Department of Developmental and Educational Psychology

External organisation(s)

Veterinärmedizinische Universität Wien

Journal

Developmental Psychology

ISSN

0012-1649

DOI

https://doi.org/10.1037/dev0001798

Publication date

09-2024

Peer reviewed

Yes

Austrian Fields of Science 2012

501005 Developmental psychology

Keywords

ASJC Scopus subject areas

Demography, Developmental and Educational Psychology, Life-span and Life-course Studies

Portal url

https://ucrisportal.univie.ac.at/en/publications/68865381-adaf-4e83-8607-551f438422c5