Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-gvvz8 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T04:55:16.469Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The social motivation for social learning

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 April 2008

Mark Nielsen
Mark Nielsen
Affiliation:
School of Psychology, University of Queensland, Brisbane QLD 4072, Australia. nielsen@psy.uq.edu.auhttp://www.psy.uq.edu.au/people/personal.html?id=636
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Through the second year, children's copying behaviour shifts from a focus on emulating to a focus on imitating. This shift can be explained by a change in focus from copying others to satisfy cognitive motivations to copying in order to satisfy social motivations. As elegant and detailed as the shared circuits model (SCM) is, it misses this crucial, motivation-based feature of imitation.

Type
Open Peer Commentary
Information
Behavioral and Brain Sciences , Volume 31 , Issue 1 , February 2008 , pp. 33
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2008

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Dijksterhuis, A. (2005) Why we are social animals: The high road to imitation as social glue. In: Perspectives on imitation: From neuroscience to social science, vol. 2: Imitation, human development, and culture, ed. Hurley, S. & Chater, N., pp. 207–20. MIT Press.Google Scholar
Gergely, G. (2003) What should a robot learn from an infant? Mechanisms of action interpretation and observational learning in infancy. Connection Science 15:191–209.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gergely, G., Bekkering, H. & Király, I. (2002) Rational imitation in preverbal infants. Nature 415:755.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Nielsen, M. (2006) Copying actions and copying outcomes: Social learning through the second year. Developmental Psychology 42:555–65.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Nielsen, M., Simcock, G. & Jenkins, L. (in press) The effect of social engagement on 24-month-olds' imitation from live and televised models. Developmental Science.Google Scholar
Tennie, C., Call, J. & Tomasello, M. (2006) Push or pull: Imitation versus emulation in human children and great apes. Ethology 112:1159–69.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Uzgiris, I. (1981) Two functions of imitation during infancy. International Journal of Behavioral Development 4:1–12.CrossRefGoogle Scholar