Age-based imitation bias throughout development, during daily interactions, and across cultures
Lead Research Organisation:
Durham University
Department Name: Psychology
Abstract
Imitation is central to how children acquire the instrumental technologies and cultural conventions which enable us to thrive in diverse environments. We have evolved cognitive heuristics, or rules-of-thumb, which bias us towards imitating individuals who are the most likely to possess beneficial information. One such heuristic is the age-based imitation bias, which predisposes children towards preferentially imitating adults over peers, theoretically because older age acts as a heuristic for expertise. We have previously found strong experimental support for age-based imitation bias. Yet, we have also shown that children across cultures can and do learn from each other. To integrate across these findings, our project will investigate whether social and cognitive development, social setting, and cultural values mediate the expression of age-based imitation bias for the first time. Our expertise in developmental psychology, cognitive science, anthropology, and cultural evolutionary theory makes our team uniquely placed to address three field-changing objectives.
First, nearly all imitation studies are conducted with young children. Yet, what children learn during adolescence sets the stage for future success. To fill this gap, we will compare the propensities of children aged 3 to 17 years to imitate peers versus adults using instrumental and conventional experimental tasks previously validated by our team. We predict that young children will imitate adults over peers in both domains, reflecting the broad application of the age-based bias, whereas adolescents will imitate adults over peers in instrumental tasks, and peers over adults in conventional tasks, reflecting their flexible use of the age-based bias.
Second, age-based imitation bias has only been investigated using experimental paradigms. We do not know if and how age-based imitation bias operates in everyday interactions, representing a threat to the ecological validity of this cognitive heuristic. Extending beyond a learner-centric view of imitation, we will conduct naturalistic observations to understand how peer and adult availability and pedagogical interactions enable and constrain age-based bias. We predict that children will preferentially imitate adults in social settings in which they are available, and that adults (rather than children) will use more sophisticated pedagogical cues, thus engendering more frequent imitation.
Finally, we do not know if cultural contexts shape the expression of age-based imitation bias. We will thus collect data among Congolese BaYaka foragers, Congolese Bandongo fisher-farmers, Chinese Americans, and Scots. These communities vary in their cultural emphasis on autonomy/conformity, and the normativity of peer/adult socialization, which may affect children's preference for learning from adults over peers. We will ascertain locally shared beliefs in these two areas using cultural consensus interviews. We will test the prediction that high autonomy and normative peer socialization co-occur with high peer imitation in the experimental and observational studies.
By meeting these objectives, our project stands to shed new light on the ontogeny and flexibility of human learning cognition. We anticipate that our findings will be of interest to cultural evolutionary modelers, leading to the development of new theories for understanding how cognitive heuristics contribute to cultural maintenance and change. We also anticipate that cognitive development researchers will attend to our results because they will elucidate whether cognitive heuristics respond to social and cultural contexts. Our project will benefit teaching and health interventions by highlighting the settings and domains in which peer imitation is likely to be the most effective. We will showcase the social benefits of our research during a knowledge exchange workshop with an international group of educators and youth workers.
First, nearly all imitation studies are conducted with young children. Yet, what children learn during adolescence sets the stage for future success. To fill this gap, we will compare the propensities of children aged 3 to 17 years to imitate peers versus adults using instrumental and conventional experimental tasks previously validated by our team. We predict that young children will imitate adults over peers in both domains, reflecting the broad application of the age-based bias, whereas adolescents will imitate adults over peers in instrumental tasks, and peers over adults in conventional tasks, reflecting their flexible use of the age-based bias.
Second, age-based imitation bias has only been investigated using experimental paradigms. We do not know if and how age-based imitation bias operates in everyday interactions, representing a threat to the ecological validity of this cognitive heuristic. Extending beyond a learner-centric view of imitation, we will conduct naturalistic observations to understand how peer and adult availability and pedagogical interactions enable and constrain age-based bias. We predict that children will preferentially imitate adults in social settings in which they are available, and that adults (rather than children) will use more sophisticated pedagogical cues, thus engendering more frequent imitation.
Finally, we do not know if cultural contexts shape the expression of age-based imitation bias. We will thus collect data among Congolese BaYaka foragers, Congolese Bandongo fisher-farmers, Chinese Americans, and Scots. These communities vary in their cultural emphasis on autonomy/conformity, and the normativity of peer/adult socialization, which may affect children's preference for learning from adults over peers. We will ascertain locally shared beliefs in these two areas using cultural consensus interviews. We will test the prediction that high autonomy and normative peer socialization co-occur with high peer imitation in the experimental and observational studies.
By meeting these objectives, our project stands to shed new light on the ontogeny and flexibility of human learning cognition. We anticipate that our findings will be of interest to cultural evolutionary modelers, leading to the development of new theories for understanding how cognitive heuristics contribute to cultural maintenance and change. We also anticipate that cognitive development researchers will attend to our results because they will elucidate whether cognitive heuristics respond to social and cultural contexts. Our project will benefit teaching and health interventions by highlighting the settings and domains in which peer imitation is likely to be the most effective. We will showcase the social benefits of our research during a knowledge exchange workshop with an international group of educators and youth workers.
