Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition, and Behavior, Radboud University Nijmegen, Nijmegen, the Netherlands.
Education and Child Studies, Leiden University, Leiden, the Netherlands.
PLoS One. 2018 Mar 7;13(3):e0194102. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0194102. eCollection 2018.
During adult interactions, behavioral mimicry, the implicit copying of an interaction partner's postures and mannerisms, communicates liking and affiliation. While this social behavior likely develops during early childhood, it is unclear which factors contribute to its emergence. Here, the roles of inhibitory control and social understanding on 5-year-olds' behavioral mimicry were investigated. Following a social manipulation in which one experimenter shared a sticker with the child and the other experimenter kept two stickers for herself, children watched a video in which these experimenters each told a story. During this story session, children in the experimental group (n = 28) observed the experimenters perform face and hand rubbing behaviors whereas the control group (n = 23) did not see these behaviors. Children's inhibitory control was assessed using the day-night task and their social understanding was measured through a parental questionnaire. Surprisingly, group-level analyses revealed that the experimental group performed the behaviors significantly less than the control group (i.e. a negative mimicry effect) for both the sticker-sharer and sticker-keeper. Yet, the hypothesized effects of inhibitory control and social understanding were found. Inhibitory control predicted children's selective mimicry of the sticker-keeper versus sticker-sharer and children's overall mimicry was correlated with social understanding. These results provide the first indications to suggest that factors of social and cognitive development dynamically influence the emergence and specificity of behavioral mimicry during early childhood.
在成人互动中，行为模仿，即无意识地模仿互动伙伴的姿势和举止，传达着喜欢和亲近。虽然这种社交行为可能在儿童早期发展，但不清楚哪些因素促成了它的出现。在这里，研究了抑制控制和社会理解对 5 岁儿童行为模仿的作用。在一个社会操作之后，一个实验者与孩子分享了一个贴纸，而另一个实验者则为自己保留了两个贴纸，孩子们观看了一个视频，其中这些实验者每人讲了一个故事。在这个故事会议期间，实验组（n = 28）的孩子观察到实验者进行面部和手部摩擦行为，而对照组（n = 23）没有看到这些行为。使用日夜任务评估儿童的抑制控制，通过父母问卷测量他们的社会理解。令人惊讶的是，组水平分析表明，实验组对贴纸分享者和贴纸保留者的行为模仿明显少于对照组（即负模仿效应）。然而，发现了抑制控制和社会理解的预期影响。抑制控制预测了儿童对贴纸保留者而非贴纸分享者的选择性模仿，而儿童的整体模仿与社会理解相关。这些结果首次表明，社会和认知发展的因素动态地影响了儿童早期行为模仿的出现和特异性。
