this is cool

[Bill]

kid survival depends on being non contradictory. (Adults too, like one shouldn't let the lawn grow un-mowed because it looks "bad") As a confirmed skeptic of social norms, I'm astounded that our daughter fits in (like in a way that is normally & scholastically seen as socially successful) regardless of her upbringing. when she was little, she thought my folks flush toilet was the epitome of civilization, and thereafter would pretend to flush our outhouse toilet. She never was fond of dirt or spiders (even in her forts in the woods).

So my observation is: perhaps they're partly responding to the clean technical nature of the toy container, how would it be to present them with one that was made of less appealing materials (old wood & rusty chicken wire can be oven baked for sanitation. used gear oil smells ghastly, rubber gloves are convincing, but might interfere w/ the interpretation of results), to see if they cut corners to keep from interacting with it "unnecessarily".

I'm guessing also that the niceness of the teacher has something to do with it, but as a dad, I couldn't recommend a way to test that. However the "value" of the toy is (I think) learned, and I'd imagine some have more value than others. for example to "save" a hamster or moth would add urgency so they might make a value judgement that overrides apparent agreeableness. ("he/she hasn't eaten anything today and want's to go home to his/her cage")

[derek]

Hi Bill,

Welcome! Thanks for getting us off to a great start by sharing your thoughts.

The point that you make about the context in which the toys are presented is a really interesting one. I'll be curious to hear how others respond to your question, but I think my personal scientific intuition would be that the context might not wind up mattering quite as much as one might think.

My reasoning here actually gets to the second part of your comment too, about the "value" of the actions. One experiment we did (that I haven't had time to write about on the site yet, but hopefully will shortly) involved creating a situation in which there was a definite incentive to get the turtle out of the toy as quickly as possible. Specifically, after children thought that the game had ended and were getting ready to go back to their classroom, the experimenter suddenly "remembered" that he had forgotten something really important. He explained to the child that there was another kid coming in to play the game in just a few minutes, and that he hadn't yet had a chance to get everything ready. Moreover, he also told the child that his assistant had recently forgotten to put the turtles back into the puzzles between participants. Might she have forgotten again this time? Before bustling out of the room to complete his preparations, the experimenter asked the child to help by checking to see whether there were indeed turtles back in the toys.

So basically, the child is left by themselves, with a fairly urgent request for information from the adult. Surely under these circumstances they should interact with the objects as efficiently as possible, skipping over any unnecessary steps in the name of expediency, right?

Well, they do try to hurry, rushing through the process of opening the object in order to get to the bottom of this important mystery. However, they also still do all of the irrelevant actions! They don't omit them, but just do them faster.

It's a pretty fun thing to see! You can actually watch it here if you'd like:

The hidden structure of overimitation -- Lyons et al., 10.1073/pnas.0704452104 -- Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

Click on "SI Movie 5" on the left, and then on the SI Movie 5 hyperlink to watch the clip.

Anyhow, results like that give me greater confidence that kids really will overimitate under an impressive range of circumstances!

Derek

[Bill]

It makes sense that small kids sort of endear themselves by imitation, when they get old enough to ignore irrelevancy, they can also negotiate and criticize my clothes. but by that time they also have enough input from other people that they can draw conclusions like "dad doesn't really own the world" and reflect genuine social judgments. I wanted my kid to tell me when I was being pushy or playing too hard, she did, but not till she was 5 or 6, before that, she imitated me to make me aware (& beat me at cards). I think imitation is being invisible to argument. the evolutionary result of all the others getting eaten. so say it's a survival trait, what other survival elements could be involved, like concerns for their personal safety for example from spiders, or loud noises that might override what grownups say. I wouldn't want to test for that, but kids could show concern for the safety of the box contents, which might override grownup reassurances, especially if it could be demonstrated that the grownup is fallible.

another possibility might be that the silly stuff is what makes it fun, after all, the toy isn't really "real" so the basis is silly too.

Actually this study sets the groundwork for what may eventually be a cure for jingo-fundamentalism. like the simple intrusion of reality: leaders are in it for themselves, & they're as deluded as us.