An Introduction to Social Psychology

Chapter 21: Imitation and Personality Development

Luther Lee Bernard

Table of Contents | Next | Previous

THE CONTROVERSY REGARDING THE TERM—Imitation was a term much used and, some recent social psychologists believe, misapplied by the older writers in social psychology., It was to the objective school of social psychology what sympathy and instinct were to the subjective schools. To some of the older writers, imitation meant simply the doing what others did, or repetition of behavior. They were absorbed wholly in the external aspects of the act and apparently it did not occur to them to inquire into the inner or neuro-psychic mechanism of the imitative process. Others who did see this necessity said we imitate because we have an instinct to copy the behavior of others. Those who could find no such instinctive mechanism—for indeed there is none—substituted sympathy or sympathetic induction, or some other near-instinctive process, as a verbal explanation of imitative behavior. Some of the more recent writers have found the term imitation so vague and general that they would dispense with it altogether. As a collective behavior concept, however, it still has value for the social psychologist and for the social sciences generally.

THE NATURE OF IMITATION—Much that is ordinarily called imitation is in reality suggestion. The two processes overlap to a considerable extent, but suggestion is largely an independent process, and is, as we have seen, antecedent to imitation. Imitation is the doing what the other person does because the perception of his behavior sets up in the imitator the same or similar responses to those which serve as stimuli. The imitated behavior may be either a total overt response or symbolic behavior. It is not possible to imitate or copy the behavior of another unless that behavior has been conditioned as a response organization in the imitator to the behavior of the one imitated,

(322) or of some one behaving as he does, as stimulus. The initiative in conditioning these imitative responses may be taken by either the imitator or the model who is imitated. Where one behaves as another behaves without the perceived behavior of the other person acting as the effective conditioning stimulus he is merely responding to the same or to a similar or associated stimulus. Dashiell, reviewing Humphrey, summarizes the process as follows: "Imitation is not to be conceived as instinctive or innate, but as an acquired reaction. Specifically, it involves a conditioned reflex the secondary stimulus of which is similar to the reaction. This secondary stimulus may originate either in the same or in another organism, so that imitation may be of self or of another. A child suffers pain, cries, hears himself crying and the last becomes the stimulus to further crying; cattle are fear-stricken, run in stampede, after which the sight of a running fellow serves as incidental stimulus for flight. Imitative units tend to become combined with themselves and integrated to form larger and larger wholes of imitative conduct; as chiseling, hammering, etc., to carpentering." [1]

THE MECHANISM of IMITATION—Thus imitation is a social category within the field of the conditioned response. We may distinguish two general types of imitation, with four subtypes, as follows

I. Suggestion Imitation.

I. Automatic or suggestion imitation proper occurs when the response of the imitator has been previously so effectively conditioned to the perception of this same behavior in another as stimulus that the imitator responds immediately and practically automatically to the perceived stimulus. Ordinarily the perception of the behavior of the other person comes in the course of time to be reduced to an automatic cue or symbol which sets off the imitative response without detailed consciousness of the relationship between the stimulus-giving person and the one who responds. Thus one removes his hat automatically upon perceiving another do the same or himself looks to the top of a building when lie perceives a crowd looking in this direction, although the original stimuli producing these responses in others are not perceptible to the imitator.

(324) Such imitation may also include the release of circular responses already conditioned in us upon the perception of the same behavior in another. Frequently we smile, or yawn, laugh, cough, become restless, tap on the arm of a chair, when we see others do these things. In the same way we become irritable or excited, scold, talk loudly, when others do. These are circular responses common to every one under certain conditions. We have the patterns of them so well developed that the perception of another doing the same thing has the power to initiate automatically the response in us.

2. Accidental imitation is a term which refers primarily to the circumstances of conditioning the response. Allport gives an excellent example. "One day while the writer's baby was visiting, the hostess observed him wave his hand aimlessly up and down. She at once drew his attention and waved her hand, at the same time crying `bye-bye.' The affair interested him greatly, and thereafter he would react either to the sight of a waving hand or to the sound of `bye-bye' by waving his hand." Possibly the case cited by McDougall of the child's sticking out his lips imitatively had a similar origin. These are simple forms of imitation and fall under the category of suggestion imitation. Other forms of imitation are purposive and more complex on the side of the conditioning process.

II. Purposive Imitation.

3. Imitation by trial and error conditioning is perhaps the more common of these, especially among the young. The motivating factor here is the desire to copy the behavior of the other person, because of his prestige, the convenience or profit which will result to us, or from some other motive of advantage to ourselves. Prestige, to whatever it is due, is unquestionably one of the strongest, if not the strongest, of motives to purposive imitation. In such a case, if the mechanism does not already exist for performing the act, it will have to be integrated. The conditioning here is of the negative type. We recognize the objective as desirable. We must learn to perform the behavior which will attain the desired objective. The motivating desire may be practically anything. The imitator selects as his model one who seems to him to typify the thing he desires to be and analyzes the model's behavior

(325) and makes it his own. Such perceptual analysis of another's behavior and conditioning of one's own like responses to it as stimulus is not purely of the crude trial and error type, as in the case of the rat seeking food in the maze, although there are practically always some trial and error elements in it. The human child and adult can perceive behavior projectively and symbolically, consequently they hit upon the behavior mechanisms of their models much more quickly by the use of their inventive intelligence.

4. Projective imitation proper occurs, therefore, when the imitator creates in himself a new behavior pattern similar to that of the model by the use of internal or abbreviated trial and error instead of by overt trial and error, although the latter form of behavior may occur also. The perceptual analysis of the behavior of the other which the subject desires to imitate is accomplished on the basis of the inner or symbolic (attitudinal or verbal) responses of the model. This is the method which we have previously called abbreviated or abstract and symbolical conditioning or responses to abstract or symbolic stimuli.

THE RECOGNITIVE BASIS OF PURPOSIVE IMITATION—In the last two types of imitation it is necessary for the imitator to perceive the behavior of the model in considerable detail in order to reproduce it. It is the inability of the subject to make this perceptual or conceptual analysis adequately on a neuro-psychic or symbolic basis which results in the trial and error element in the third type of imitation. The difference between the two types is determined primarily by the different degrees of development of personality levels achieved by the subjects, as was pointed out in Chapter XVIII. Lower animals and young children use trial and error method largely, although Köhler seems to have shown that chimpanzees make use of the fourth method to a slight extent. The greater ease with which concrete visible movements and simple sounds can be imitated by the child and the great difficulty with which he imitates anything abstract are easily explainable in the light of these facts. He has already made the movements and sounds in kind or in closely similar forms. He has accordingly learned to perceive these forms of behavior in himself. It is all the easier there-

(326) -fore for him to perceive them in another and to imitate them as a means to an end. When he has developed the same degree of skill in perceiving attitudes or symbolic behavior in himself it becomes equally easy to recognize them in another and to imitate the symbolic and abstract as well as the overt and concrete behavior of his model. It is not necessary that the behavior of the model should be copied slavishly. It may be elaborated and modified to fit the imitator's own particular needs, circumstances, or personality. This is the inventive side of imitation par excellence, although the very act of integrating the behavior of another perceptually and projectively is to some extent inventive.

SOME ILLUSTRATIONS—The inability to imitate projectively what is not perceived may be illustrated by the child's attempt to read the newspaper or a book as his father does. He gets himself into the proper position, perhaps even crossing his legs and leaning back in his little chair. Then he picks up the paper and holds it in the same relative position as that in which his father holds it. He scrutinizes his father from time to time to make sure that all the details are correct, although he may not see that he holds the paper upside down. This important detail of the correct holding of the paper he cannot imitate because he cannot perceive that there is a top and a bottom side or, if he is told there is, he cannot perceive what constitute these relative positions. Later, when he can perceive from the pictures or the print the correct position in this respect, he adds this detail to his imitative behavior. He also wishes to imitate the reading, but is unable to recognize the words. However, he has been able to perceive and recognize in some degree the sounds which his father makes, although he has not connected them with verbal symbols on the printed page. Consequently he makes sounds in imitation of his father's vocalization in reading, or he moves his lips as he .sees his father's lips moving, although in each case he cannot perceive or imitate the meaning. This inability to perceive and recognize the complete behavior stimulus in the father and to imitate or copy it in his own behavior further illustrates the greater ease with which we recognize and imitate overt behavior and emotional expression than intellectual content or ideas through

( 327) their symbols. I have also observed a child of less than two years imitating so closely the sounds of a huckster that one would almost believe that he recognized the actual words, although of course he did not understand anything the huckster said. He merely recognized with a considerable degree of accuracy the sounds and tones.

The cases just given illustrate largely trial and error imitation. An illustration of projective imitation by direct observation is that of a child learning to perform an act of skill by observing carefully and analytically another perform it. If the child has had sufficient similar experience previously, that is, if his previous development of behavior patterns gives him perceptual mechanisms which are adequate to grasp all of the details, he will be able to perform the act himself from observation with a considerable degree of accuracy and without practice. All of us have had the experience of "trying our hand" with a new game after observing its performance by another in great detail, and perhaps have been surprised at our success. We had a sufficient number of behavior mechanisms which could be adapted by analogy to this game so that we could start out at once to play it without first learning it by the trial and error method.

Illustrations of projective learning by the aid of verbal symbols as mechanisms of perceptual response are to be found in cases of children's learning to perform acts of skill partly by observing their teacher and partly by listening to his verbal descriptions. A still more thoroughgoing illustration is that of a child's learning how to do a thing wholly from listening to a verbal description. This is a much more difficult method of imitating, as the agricultural extension workers recognized when they substituted demonstration for lectures as a method of teaching farmers how to raise better crops.

In none of these types of imitation is it possible to imitate projectively without having behavior and perceptual patterns sufficiently similar to those of the model that his behavior can be perceived and copied by the subject. In the case of symbolic projective imitation there must also be a similarity of language equipment or conditioning.

THE NEURAL BASIS OF IMITATION IS MAINLY ACQUIRED —

(328) We can imitate only behavior which we can perceive analytically or recognize in detail, and only the behavior we ourselves have approximate mechanisms for performing, overtly or internally. These mechanisms or stimulus-response patterns may be instinctive or acquired. There are probably very few instinctive stimulus-response mechanisms sufficiently complete to serve as patterns for imitating behavior in others in detail. Consequently, most mechanisms for such imitation have been acquired or built up through previous adjustment to environmental pressures. The infant does not imitate complex behavior until it has had time to integrate a sufficient number of stimulus-response mechanisms to enable it to perceive a fairly complex process of behavior in another. The same mechanism which mediates the response also serves as the basis for perception. The perception of the behavior of the model, by becoming the content of the neuro-psychic mechanisms of the imitator, becomes the initial stage or stimulus of the inner overt response which we call objectively the act of imitation. Perceiving is in such a case really psychic imitation, although we may recognize it as such in another only when we see the overt response. However, in psychic imitation, which we can recognize in ourselves only introspectively, and in others through certain partial and substitute responses called language symbols, the imitative inner response may be as complete of its kind as is overt imitation. In imitation of the overt response the similarity of the stimulus and the response in behavior is concretely perceptible. In imitation of the psychic behavior the similarity is recognized conceptually. Both overt and psychic responses are imitative only if the stimulating behavior is copied in the response. In the first two types of imitation called suggestion imitation conscious perception of the stimulus activity may be reduced to a minimum because of the automatization of the process.

If instinctive neuro-psychic mechanisms served to any considerable extent as a basis for imitation the child would begin his copying of the behavior of others as soon as he was born The power to imitate projectively grows steadily with the increased experience of the child and adult, but this power may not be exercised so exclusively after the period of intellectual

( 329) maturity is reached, because for most people life becomes largely a matter of routine or self-imitation after maturity and those for whom it does not become routine usually pride themselves on making independent judgments of their own. But such so-called independent judgments are necessarily nearly always camouflaged or abstractly conditioned imitative responses.

WHY WE IMITATE—It is easy to understand how the earlier social psychologists might confuse suggestion imitation with instinctive behavior. In such cases the response has become so stereotyped and so strongly conditioned to its stimulus that it occurs as directly and unconsciously upon the presentation of the stimulus as an instinct. If we did not know the circumstances of the conditioning, we should easily fall into the error of supposing it to be instinctive. However, completer analysis discloses the mechanism to be not different from other acquired automatic responses except that the response is like the behavior which serves as the stimulus. We need no instinct hypothesis to explain it.

In the case of purposive imitation the problem of why we imitate is more complex. In such cases the mechanism is usually not already completely present, but it must be acquired. Why do we integrate these particular behavior patterns ? That is, why do we imitate only certain types of behavior and not others? In such cases imitation is a means to an end, and we take over the behavior of our model because that particular type of behavior will attain the end. Köhler's illustration of the chimpanzee's imitation is a case in point. Food was hung from the ceiling of the cage, and a stool placed in the corner. The hungry ape jumped and jumped in a vain effort to secure the food. It did not occur to him to use the stool. Köhler then entered the cage, placed a stool under the food, stood on the stool, and touched the food. When he left, after pushing the stool away, the animal immediately repeated Köhler's behavior and procured the food. Imitation was in this case the means tù all end.

In human life the end may be the desire for social approbation, or to be like some one who attracts us, who has power or efficiency, who is admired or imitated by other people, in fact

(330) to be like any one who possesses prestige. The elements which constitute prestige have already been analyzed in the preceding chapter. Another important motive for imitation is the desire for new experiences. The child is full of energy, but he does not always have well integrated patterns of behavior through which to discharge his energy. As a result he looks to those about him for patterns which will release his urges in interesting ways. In childhood the models are concrete personalities, later on they are more abstract. The evolution in models is discussed in the following three chapters.

When the initiative for imitation comes from the model himself, the imitated behavior is forced upon the individual. In such cases he cannot help himself. Thus the child is obliged to imitate the manners and general etiquette of his elders under penalty of physical punishment. Later on conventional and customary and traditional responses are strongly conditioned in him and deviations are punished psychically or socially. Even the most independent minded bow to the sway of these controls in minor matters, if for no other reason than to escape notice and greater annoyance. They imitate because they are obliged to do so.

ABSTRACT SYMBOLIC OR PSYCHIC IMITATION—We imitate the psychic or attitudinal behavior of persons, either by perceiving and recognizing their symbolic behavior responses, or by recognizing the externalized symbolic expression of their psychic or attitudinal behavior in books, etc. The one form of attitudinal or symbolic imitation we may term personal and the other nonpersonal. Both are indirect forms of imitation as compared with the direct imitation of overt behavior in another.

PERSONAL PSYCHIC IMITATION—We may copy indirectly the conscious or unconscious symbolic behavior of others in so far as we are able to perceive the symbols of these processes and condition our own attitudinal or psychic behavior to them. An example of the imitation of attitudinal behavior is thinking or feeling as others think or feel about politics, religion, art, marriage, or any other social process, because we have recognized this psychic or attitudinal content through its symbolic expressions. Abstract psychic imitation especially, and all

(331) types of psychic imitation usually, involve the recognition of verbal language symbols as a means to the recognition of the psychic or attitudinal content of the behavior of another and the incorporation of this same psychic content into ourselves. We might in fact speak of psychic imitation as language imitation. However, in the imitation of the more primary emotions, the language is usually that of facial expression, gesture, and the like, rather than verbal language. This form of psychic imitation, the copying of the psychic attitudes, emotions, beliefs, opinions, etc., of others, is still the imitation of personality, although it is indirect, or through the medium of language or expression symbols.

NONPERSONAL SYMBOLIC OR PSYCHIC IMITATION occurs when we copy the attitudes, beliefs, opinions, principles, etc., of people through the medium of their literature, art, and other symbolic objectifications of their behavior. We imitate in this type the thoughts of persons as expressed by those persons, not directly to ourselves, but through the medium of books or other externalized communication media. To be sure the difference between this method of psychic imitation through written words, art, and other abstract extensions of personality, and the imitation of spoken words or verbal symbols of inner or attitudinal behavior of concrete persons is only one of degree, not wholly of kind. It is only a more highly indirect form of the imitation of psychic behavior than is the imitation of spoken words or visible emotional expressions and gestures. Both are in the last analysis indirect or abstract and symbolic forms of imitation. It is in this connection that the greatest device of civilization, the storage of externalized neuro-psychic technique, finds its highest degree of usefulness. In the reading of books and the absorption or the rational imitation of their symbolized contents into our own psychic behavior, and later possibly into our overt adjustment behavior, by a process of projection and elaboration of symbolic content, we are fulfilling all the conditions of projective elaboration or invention quite as fully and as effectively as if we were imitating the behavior of concrete personalities. Thus it is possible to imitate abstractly and indirectly the inner or overt behavior of a person at a great distance or long after his organic personality has ceased to exist.

( 332) This is the sort of immortality for which George Eliot expressed a desire in her verses on the "choir invisible." The importance of nonpersonal symbolic imitation is sufficiently obvious if we remember that the larger part of the adjustment technique of science in the modern world is preserved and transmitted through the medium of books and periodicals.

ABSTRACT AND CONCRETE IMITATION CONTRASTED—Although abstract psychic or symbolic imitation is of greater importance in the maintenance and dispersion of high standards of culture and conduct and consequently in the promotion of social progress, the direct and concrete imitation of overt behavior is much the easier form. As Ross has so interestingly pointed out, we are always in danger of passing up the significant models and of selecting the unimportant or positively bad ones, of imitating the superficial at the expense of the fundamental. This has always been so, but it is probably less true now, in spite of many appearances to the contrary, than it was formerly. It would probably be even less true to-day if the superficial and the unworthy were not so universally commercialized and so assiduously advertised.

Many barbarian and early civilization types of education, emphasizing the form more than the substance, as this stage of culture so often did and does, begin by having the youths memorize the words long before they are taught their meaning. Some religions teach their ritual to the masses but induct them into the philosophy or meaning content but slowly and sparingly. All of us are guilty of imitating the superficial traits of those who have prestige with us much more effectively than their fundamental qualities. Thus we take on their mannerisms of speech and social intercourse, copy their minor vices believing them to be virtues, imitate their manner of dress, social and recreational habits, and the like, although we may not be able to attain to their professional or other efficiency, because we have not yet analyzed or recognized accurately that more abstract phase of their behavior.

Thus the buy who is growing up anal wishes to be like a man copies the superficial traits, such as smoking, swaggering, swearing, story-telling, and perhaps gambling, drinking and other vices, of the young men around town. These traits are

( 333) more easily perceived than the routine and more abstract efficiency traits of business and professional men. He copies on the assumption that if he acts like his elders, who are his superiors, in the things which he understands about them he will have adult characteristics. Later on, when he has learned to recognize the more fundamental traits of adult efficiency and to understand the true reasons for adult prestige, he revises his objectives in projective imitation to include the more abstract values. At least, most boys do this sooner or later; but some apparently never learn to recognize and imitate the more abstract qualities in behavior. Women are going through much the same process of selecting and revising their objectives in imitation in this day of their emancipation. For them also the behavior of men has much more prestige than their own traditional behavior. But the male traits which they have so far learned to recognize and value as objects of imitation have been largely superficial. The amount of drinking, smoking, and other vices among women has greatly increased since they have been taking men—especially the young men around town —as their models. But many other women also have learned to imitate the efficiency and solidity of professional and business men and the leaders of scientific thinking.

One of the most important functions of the schools, in a rational educational system, as well as of the home and other formative institutions, is to aid the youth in perceiving and recognizing the meaning of behavior patterns which it is important that he should copy in his own behavior.

IMITATION AS VICARIOUS INTEGRATION OF PERSONALITY

Projective imitation is a form of vicarious personality integration. By means of this process of imitation we use the personality materials of others in building up our own personalities. However, it is not possible to take over their personality or behavior achievements bodily and without the necessity on our own part of going through the process of self-development. We cannot filch from others the personality achievements which they have attained and make them our own without first having laid the foundation for such a transference or projection into ourselves by our own previous experiences. We can imitate only what we have inner or attitudinal

(334) behavior patterns for or can understand by analogy and symbolic elaboration. This does not, of course, mean that we can imitate only that in others which we have previously done or experienced with completeness ourselves. If this were so, there would be no gain for the individual through imitation and all imitation would be of the automatic or copying by suggestion type. Here, as elsewhere, it is possible to see our own behavior processes in new relationships or organizations with the aid of the other person's behavior as model. By learning to recognize the full content of the superior personality of another we can integrate in ourselves similar behavior patterns out of the old but less effectively organized behavior patterns previously integrated in ourselves. It is not necessary that we copy the behavior of others entirely, or that we perceive beforehand the ultimate responses of the imitated behavior. It is sufficient if the perception of the behavior of another, entire or in part, starts us on a similar type of response and personality development. Once begun the completion of the activity will be taken care of by trial and error or projectively, according as we learn to analyze the models who condition our responses. Thus, every imitated behavior process, especially if it possesses any degree of complexity or is carried on over any considerable period of time, is likely to be modified and to diverge considerably from the behavior pattern which is imitated. This fact is of value from an adjustment standpoint, since it affords a much greater chance for flexibility of adaptation to environment and in fact for the modification of environmental pressures themselves than would be possible if all imitation were in the nature of an exact and precise copy.

The value of vicarious personality integration through imitation is very great in spite of the limitations here mentioned. It is not unlimited in its possibilities, for it cannot take place without previous preparation. But the fact of the existence of a model as a constellation of stimuli serves as a strong social pressure to induce the less experienced to develop their behavior in a similar manner and to a like or greater extent. Furthermore, the flexibility of the process enables people to vary their imitated responses to suit the demands of their own environments. The existence of the model as a

( 335) stimulus to the development of a rich personality content through imitation is also very important for the preservation of social or cultural achievements. Those who have already built up in themselves the personality values of civilization through copying them from others, or through conditioning original traits of their own, now serve as stimuli to the younger generations to develop in themselves these same traits. From no other source could they receive as adequately these social stimuli. By the very act of projectively elaborating or recognizing these traits which already exist in another we establish the first or inner phase of the same behavior response in ourselves. Thus others stimulate us to make new personality integrations with reference to them and in this way we can enrich our own characters by imitating them. While it is true that we cannot imitate projectively what we cannot perceive, nevertheless we can learn to perceive the behavior of another person quite as well as any other object, and this recognition of the behavior of another may go on together with the imitative or elaborative process within ourselves. This fact explains why we are not dependent entirely upon previous experience for imitation, important as it is, but may imitate in part behavior which we have never experienced as such before.

VICARIOUS INTEGRATION OF PERSONALITY AS A SOURCE OF COLLECTIVE BEHAVIOR—Another great social advantage arising from vicarious personality integration is that it is one of the chief sources of relatively uniform collective behavior. It is perhaps the chief source of those uniformities in society which make people sufficiently alike to live together with a minimum of friction and misunderstanding. Because of the diversity of contacts of the modern man, due to his high motility and the great development of means of communication, he is brought in touch with a great many models representing all types of behavior. This enables him to make his own character highly cosmopolitan and to embody in it a selection of the best of everything. This multiplication of effective models undoubtedly accounts in large measure for the great degree of amity extending over wide areas which characterizes the modern world. At the same time the models presented for imitation are so numerous that some degree of selection is nec-

( 336) -essary. This fact saves us from wooden uniformity and enables us to build up types of personality which are best suited to our particular adjustment needs without at the same time coming in conflict with the mores and folkways as wholes.

Imitation also makes the present largely uniform with the past and thus preserves for us the achievements in knowledge and technique Of those who have gone before us. Without this temporal uniformity secured through imitation of the old and intellectually mature by the young and intellectually immature, each individual would be compelled to work out his adjustments for himself and social progress would proceed, in so far as it was possible at all, only through biological selection. The chief, if not the only, present means of social progress now operative is social selection and environmental transmission. This method has become highly effective. Language, which symbolizes the accumulated achievements of civilization, is the chief instrument of vicarious personality development through projective imitation and consequently the chief aid to social progress. It also makes possible the preservative and formative institutions and the storage of externalized neuro-psychic technique through which the most significant forms of vicarious personality development take place.

ORIGINAL AND IMITATIVE THINKING CONTRASTED—New forms of psychic behavior come in two ways: either through abstract imitation, facilitated by reading, attendance upon lectures, conversations, etc. ; or through independent or original conditioning of responses of our own without the aid of imitation. Relatively few people do much of the latter. The scientists in their laboratories, the observers of nature, and those reflectively inclined are most prolific in the integration of new abstract ideas or concepts. The golden age for such thinking among the laity seems to be in the late 'teens and early twenties, after abstract thinking has been stimulated by abstract symbolic imitation and before the circumstances of occupation and age and interest have stereotyped the psychic behavior of people. The professional thinker, however, may continue thinking abstractly and imitating elaboratively the ideas of others with a high degree of efficiency throughout life. Mechanical and social inventions, which have given most people more leisure and

( 337) freedom from economic and subsistence fears, together with more training in both original and vicarious conditioning of symbolic responses, have done much in recent times to stimulate independent abstract thinking. This is true in the face of the statement by a recent writer to the effect that not more than one person in a thousand ever thinks an original thought. At least, they may now rethink the important thoughts of others. And the success or failure of democracy, and perhaps of civilization, depends on the extent to which they do this.

THE RHYTHMS OF IMITATION—There are crescendos and diminuendos in the imitative process corresponding to each type of behavior. The earliest imitated responses are of the overt type and they are dependent upon the presence of previously formed instinctive or acquired behavior patterns of a similar character. The child also learns early to recognize emotional expressions in others and to copy these projectively into his own behavior. Accompanying these imitated overt expressions are psychic attitudes which constitute his first achievement in the imitation of the psychic behavior of others in himself. This early imitation of emotional attitudes is of course in the nature of the elaboration of the child's own previous emotional experiences which have grown out of his contacts with his personality environment. As the experience of the child grows and as an ever wider range of neuro-muscular and neuro-psychic behavior patterns develops out of his original and imitative adjustment experiences, he is able to elaborate imitatively in himself both types of the behavior of others in ever greater detail. Thus, through imitation and independent experimental perceptual analysis, he comes normally to possess a considerable degree of skill in making differential neuromuscular adaptations to his environment. These adaptive behavior patterns are in the nature of manual skills of all sorts and athletic skills, such as swimming, running, throwing objects at a mark, rowing, boxing, wrestling, and the like. They also sooner or later include some of the skills of the manual worker arid the artisan, and of the professional roan. Iii a similar manner, ordinarily, he develops considerable skill in emotional expression and in the attitudinal consciousness of the emotions

( 338)

Thus the imitation of overt action and emotional expression types of behavior grows rapidly from the second year or earlier into the early 'teens, when it begins to occupy less the center of the stage. Imitation of the internal or psychic behavior of others, beginning with the emotional attitudes and, expanding to include ideas, and especially descriptive knowledge content, becomes important long before the child reaches the 'teens and continues dominant throughout the greater part of them. He learns to imitate the ideas of others through the process of analyzing their verbal symbols and the elaborative projection or integration of their meaning content into his own personality. At first the intellectual content, as distinguished from the more definitely emotional content, of his psychic behavior or inner personality is primarily of the descriptive type. The child learns about all sorts of things—plants, animals, geography, people, industries, transportation equipment, etc. — from direct observation and from spoken and written verbal or symbolic descriptions by others. Later he learns also to make abstract generalizations about these things and also to elaborate in his psychic or symbolic and attitudinal self the like generalizations of others. In this way he transforms his world from a concrete descriptive one into an abstract conceptual one, just as earlier he had progressed from a world of overt behavior experience to one of emotional attitudes,[2] and thence to the world of new and entrancing descriptive knowledge experiences, with which emotional attitudes were still closely and largely intertwined. The knowledge of nature and of the works of man which the child acquires so industriously and absorbingly from around about his sixth or seventh year through his early 'teens, or even later, is tied up closely with strong emotional attitudes of appreciation. He is not likely to come to live in an abstract and relatively unemotional world until his late 'teens or even twenties or later. Of course many never escape domination by their emotional experiences, either because they have not been brought sufficiently constantly and closelv in contact with other personalities whose inner behavior is of the abstract and rational type, or because they are not

(339) capable through native ability and early experience of developing abstract judgments.

Abstract or indirect symbolic imitation, thus beginning in the early 'teens or before, develops from this 'period until some time in the twenties or thirties, or even later, when the behavior mechanisms of the individual tend to become stereotyped. The period at which personality is stereotyped varies in different people according to their circumstances, education, vocation, and the adjustment demands of all types made upon them. In some people there is never any considerable development of abstract and indirect symbolic imitation, and even psychic imitation of the more concrete or descriptive knowledge types may be greatly limited. Such people tend to become stereotyped in their behavior sooner than others. People with low intelligence quotients also become fixed in their behavior routines quite early.

IMITATION VARIES WITH CLASSES—The same, in less degree, is true of all persons with slight literate interests, such as is the case with most hand workers, small tradesmen, many housewives, poor farmers, and other people following mechanical occupations or with poor intellectual training. Also people who incur family obligations on small incomes and thus feel strongly the constant grind of maintaining an existence, clerical workers who owe heavy obligations of conformity to the ideas of their employers, salesmen who must not offend the trade, members of organizations with prescribed codes and creeds, and soldiers, are especially liable to drop into repetitive routine or to stereotype their imitative behavior into mere response by suggestion. But the behavior of practically all people tends to become stereotyped sooner or later, if for no other reason than because of the increasing demands of occupation for all of their time and energies and because with increasing age there is less energy available for an experimental attitude toward life. Only the professional thinkers and people of leisure can hope to keep a high degree of freedom from stereotyped mental behavior, and most of these tend to fall into regular habits of thinking or opinions which prevent the acquisition of new ideas. Some one has said that practically all of the great ideas come to one before the age of thirty or forty

( 340) and that achievements after this age are primarily in the nature of elaborating our old ideas.

SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS—Imitation is a social process by which our perception of the behavior of another conditions or initiates in us like responses. In individual psychology there is no need of the category imitation, for the mechanism can be explained wholly in terms of perception and the conditioning of responses. In the social sciences it is useful as an important abbreviated method of describing a type of collective behavior. If the imitation is in the nature of a direct and total copying of the behavior of the other person without modification or elaboration it occurs on the level of suggestion. If it involves modification or elaboration of the subject's behavior it is purposive or even projective imitation, as distinguished from suggestion. This imitative response cannot occur unless we have previously entertained similar experiences. But ordinarily our experiences have been only partly the same. Consequently most such imitation is purposive and projective and involves the elaboration or reconstruction of our own behavior, overt or internal. The greater the degree of elaboration of the responses, and the more internal or conscious these mechanisms are, the more rational and abstract the imitative process becomes. This process of elaborating the imitative behavior process may proceed to the extent that it involves but little pure imitation. In such cases we ordinarily term it simply rational or original behavior. In order that the elaboration of one's own behavior through the projective analysis and integration of the behavior of another shall be imitation it is necessary that the other person's behavior be copied in some perceptible degree. The occurrence of a response on the part of one person to the stimulus of the behavior of another does not in itself constitute imitative behavior. To be imitative it must be response in kind.

Imitation does not begin immediately after birth, because there are no adequate behavior bases for imitative responses. The infant has to begin his adaptive responses on an original basis. Later, when he has learned to analyze and understand other personalities, he can avail himself of their experience and make many of his adjustments vicariously by means of

( 341) imitation. As he matures, imitation becomes increasingly important as a method of making his adjustments to his social world. The most important forms of imitative adjustment are those by abstract or indirect and projective imitation. Projective imitation enables the subject to expand his adjustments through elaboration, and indirect or symbolic imitation permits him to take over the condensed and abstracted or generalized experiences of others through externalized and stored language symbols and to apply them to his own adjustment needs. The simplest and most direct form of imitation occurs ,when the behavior of the imitated or object person becomes merely a cue (or is perceived as such) which sets off an automatic imitative response without elaboration. This we call suggestion imitation. As we have seen, not all responses by suggestion are imitative. This automaticity of response is usually the result of considerable practice, although it is possible for simple, primarily instinctive responses, like yawning, coughing, crying, smiling, frowning, etc., to become accurately conditioned early in infancy and thus to occur on the basis of suggestion. So many imitated responses become automatic in later life that adults behave very largely on the basis of suggestion. This is particularly true of stereotyped personalities.

MATERIALS FOR SUPPLEMENTARY READING

Notes

  1. Psychological Bulletin.
  2. As a matter of fact these three phases of development are practically contemporaneous.

Valid HTML 4.01 Strict Valid CSS2