Imitative Learning of Nso and German Infants at 6 and 9 Months of Age: Evidence for a Cross-Cultural Learning Tool

The present study focused on the assessment of imitation performance in a large sample of 6- and 9-month-old infants from two different cultural contexts: German middle-class infants from urban areas and Nso infants from a rural area in northwestern Cameroon were tested by using age-adapted deferred...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of cross-cultural psychology 2014-01, Vol.45 (1), p.47-61
Main Authors: Graf, Frauke, Borchert, Sonja, Lamm, Bettina, Goertz, Claudia, Kolling, Thorsten, Fassbender, Ina, Teubert, Manuel, Vierhaus, Marc, Freitag, Claudia, Spangler, Sibylle, Keller, Heidi, Lohaus, Arnold, Schwarzer, Gudrun, Knopf, Monika
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Babies
Cameroon
Cross cultural studies
Cross-cultural analysis
Cultural aspects
Cultural behaviour
Familiarity
Germany
Imitation
Infancy
Infants
Learning
Observational Learning
Rural areas
Samples
Urban Areas
Young Children
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Summary:The present study focused on the assessment of imitation performance in a large sample of 6- and 9-month-old infants from two different cultural contexts: German middle-class infants from urban areas and Nso infants from a rural area in northwestern Cameroon were tested by using age-adapted deferred imitation tasks that were varied regarding their cultural familiarity (two types of instruments each being highly familiar for one of the two cultural contexts). Within both cultural groups and without being influenced by the cultural familiarity of the instruments, infants performed more target actions in the test compared with the baseline phase, even though this difference did not yield significance in the group of 6-month-old Cameroonian Nso infants. Moreover, a higher mean number of imitated actions has been observed for 9-month-olds compared with 6-month-olds demonstrating an age-related improvement of infants’ learning ability. Furthermore, at 9 months of age, German infants showed a higher level of baseline activity compared with the infants in the Cameroonian sample, which is assumed to be based on differences regarding the degree of object experiences. Results provide evidence that early in infancy, imitation is a universal learning tool in different cultural environments.
ISSN:0022-0221
1552-5422
DOI:10.1177/0022022113487075