factual
Children Balance Imitation and Innovation
Children are social and cultural learners but do not blindly imitate; they balance what they observe an adult demonstrate against their own beliefs about how something works, and experimental manipulations of how confident or uncertain the demonstrator appears shift children toward more imitation or more independent exploration accordingly.
factualpending
Speaker
Alison GopnikEvidence Quote
“if the experimenter says, 'I'm gonna show you how this works.' The children are much more likely to do the kind of over imitation... But if the experimenter says, 'Gee, look at this. I don't know how this works.'... Then the children are much more likely to explore”
Created: 6/13/2026, 12:24:35 AM
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