Human children overimitate even when they see actions are useless

Evidence

When chimpanzees saw this demonstration using an opaque black box, they faithfully did both actions in the same order. But when the experimenters used a clear box, the chimpanzee could observe that the top opening had nothing whatsoever to do with the food. In this case, the chimpanzee would then go straight to the front opening, ignoring the top one altogether. The three-year-old children, in contrast, reproduced the unnecessary first step even when they could see that it did nothing. — Brian Christian, The Alignment Problem, 943

Categorization

• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Brian Christian, The Alignment Problem, 943
• XREF: connects to: Toddlers distinguish deliberate choices from forced actions when imitating — Brian Christian, The Alignment Problem, 948; Overimitation grows with the ability to model others’ minds — Brian Christian, The Alignment Problem, 950; Under-five children lack the neural architecture that punishment assumes — , The Rod and the Child: A Global History…, 5888 (+2 more)

Related

• Toddlers distinguish deliberate choices from forced actions when imitating (similarity 0.89)
• Overimitation grows with the ability to model others’ minds (similarity 0.88)
• Children, unlike chimps, overimitate even when causality is transparent (similarity 0.85)
• Confident models and accurate imitation strengthen children’s normative judgments. (similarity 0.79)

Broader Connections

• Overimitation grows with the ability to model others’ minds #expands (0.70) — Brian Christian, The Alignment Problem, 950