CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2025
| Author | Rizvanovic, Nejra |
|---|---|
| Title | Understanding Overimitation in Social Interaction: From Joint Actions to Teaching |
| Summary | Humans learn not only by observing individuals, but also by watching people collaborate toward shared goals. While research in social learning and action understanding has in large part focused on how individuals imitate individual actions and goals, comparatively little is known about how observing joint actions—social interactions involving coordination and shared goals—influences imitation. This thesis explored whether the well-established tendency to overimitate individual actions also applies to joint actions, and how this phenomenon manifests across different domains—from observing others to actively participating in joint activities. Across three empirical studies, we explored these questions in both adults and children. Study 1 (Chapter 2) investigated whether adults expect higher imitative fidelity from others when actions are performed jointly rather than individually, even when some elements of those actions are causally irrelevant. Results showed that joint actions are indeed expected to be copied more faithfully. Study 2 (Chapter 3) tested 3-6-year-old preschool children’s imitation of joint versus individual actions and found that overimitation occurs in both contexts, though not significantly more in joint compared to individual ones. Study 3 (Chapter 4) explored the impact of teaching anticipation on imitation in 4- to 6-year-olds. Results indicate that girls, but not boys, imitate more faithfully when they expect to teach others. Additionally, access to goal-related information—whether for teaching or individual learning—increased imitation fidelity across participants. Together, these findings deepen our understanding of how joint action contexts shape imitative behavior. They offer a more nuanced understanding of imitative learning in both adults and children, highlighting their flexibility in learning from diverse social contexts and their active involvement in shaping cultural knowledge. |
| Supervisor | Sebanz, Natalie; Király, Ildikó |
| Department | Cognitive Science PhD |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2025/rizvanovic_nejra.pdf |
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