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  "Over-imitation": A review and appraisal of a decade of research

Hoehl, S., Keupp, S., Schleihauf, H., McGuigan, N., Buttelmann, D., & Whiten, A. (2019). "Over-imitation": A review and appraisal of a decade of research. Developmental Review, 51, 90-108. doi:10.1016/j.dr.2018.12.002.

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 Creators:
Hoehl, Stefanie1, 2, Author           
Keupp, Stefanie3, Author
Schleihauf, Hanna2, Author           
McGuigan, Nicola 4, Author
Buttelmann, David5, Author
Whiten, Andrew6, Author
Affiliations:
1University Vienna, Austria, ou_persistent22              
2Max Planck Research Group Early Social Cognition, MPI for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Max Planck Society, Leipzig, DE, ou_2355694              
3Cognitive Ethology Lab, German Primate Center, Göttingen, Germany, ou_persistent22              
4University of the West of Scotland, Paisley, United Kingdom, ou_persistent22              
5University of Bern, Switzerland, ou_persistent22              
6University of St Andrews, United Kingdom, ou_persistent22              

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Free keywords: Imitation; Over-imitation; Cultural learning; Social norms; Social learning
 Abstract: After seeing an action sequence children and adults tend to copy causally relevant and, more strikingly, even perceivably unnecessary actions in relation to the given goal. This phenomenon, termed “over-imitation”, has inspired much empirical research in the past decade as well as lively theoretical debate on its cognitive underpinnings and putative role in the transmission of cultural knowledge. Here, we offer a comprehensive review of the existing literature to date, accompanied by a table including concise information on 54 published studies testing over-imitation in different species, age groups and cultures. We highlight methodological issues related to task and context that influence over-imitation rates and that should be carefully considered in study designs. We discuss the cognitive and motivational processes underlying and contributing to over-imitation, including normative action parsing, causal reasoning, motives of affiliation and social learning as well as their complex interplay. We conclude that despite the apparent irrationality of over-imitation behavior, recent studies have shown that its performance depends on the specific task, modeled actions and context variables, suggesting that over-imitation should be conceptualized as a contextually flexible and, in fact, a normally highly functional phenomenon.

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Language(s): eng - English
 Dates: 2018-11-092018-08-242019-01-032019-01-032019-03
 Publication Status: Issued
 Pages: -
 Publishing info: -
 Table of Contents: -
 Rev. Type: Peer
 Identifiers: DOI: 10.1016/j.dr.2018.12.002
 Degree: -

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Project name : -
Grant ID : HO 4342/8-1
Funding program : -
Funding organization : Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG)

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Title: Developmental Review
Source Genre: Journal
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Publ. Info: New York : Academic Press
Pages: - Volume / Issue: 51 Sequence Number: - Start / End Page: 90 - 108 Identifier: ISSN: 0273-2297
CoNE: https://pure.mpg.de/cone/journals/resource/954922648103