%0 Journal Article
%A Zhao, Mingxuan
%A Fong, Frankie T. K.
%A Whiten, Andrew
%A Nielsen, Mark
%+ Department of Comparative Cultural Psychology, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Max Planck Society
%T Do children imitate even when it is costly? New insights from a novel task : 
%G eng
%U https://hdl.handle.net/21.11116/0000-000D-CF1B-D
%R 10.1111/bjdp.12463
%7 2023-10-06
%D 2024
%* Review method: peer-reviewed
%X Children have a proclivity to learn through faithful imitation, but the extent to which this applies under significant cost remains unclear. To address this, we investigated whether 4- to 6-year-old children (N = 97) would stop imitating to forego a desirable food reward. We presented participants with a task involving arranging marshmallows and craft sticks, with the goal being either to collect marshmallows or build a tower. Children replicated the demonstrated actions with high fidelity regardless of the goal, but retrieved rewards differently. Children either copied the specific actions needed to build a tower, prioritizing tower completion over reward; or adopted a novel convention of stacking materials before collecting marshmallows, and developed their own method to achieve better outcomes. These results suggest children's social learning decisions are flexible and context-dependent, yet that when framed by an ostensive goal, children imitated in adherence to the goal despite incurring significant material costs. © 2023 The Authors. British Journal of Developmental Psychology published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of British Psychological Society.
%K children, cost, flexible imitation, goals, high-fidelity imitation, social learning
%J British Journal of Developmental Psychology
%V 42
%N 1
%& 18
%P 18 - 35
%@ 0261-510X2044-835X