Role-Taking in Childhood and Its Consequences for Social Learning1

Let us assume that a large part of what a young child learns is acquired through the process of instrumental learning. This process involves selection of some of the child's overt actions via reward, and the elimination of others either through nonreward or through punishment. I wish to propose that concurrently the young child is acquiring a repertoire of behavior through a different process: that of practicing covertly the characteristic actions of other people with whom he interacts. Since reproducing other people's actions has been labeled imitation, and imitation has been described as a product of instrumental learning, cf. Miller and Dollard (3), it may be well to begin with a detailed description of the kind of imitation I am talking about, and to consider whether it does indeed follow the principles of instrumental learning. Let us draw on some of the ingenious and marvelously detailed descriptions of imitation in the first year of life reported by Piaget (6). In describing the behavior of one of his infant daughters, Piaget notes that at first she seemed to react to voices without any apparent effort to imitate specific sounds. Here is a report when the infant was I month and 25 days old: