Why do young children actively imitate older children?

1、

To answer this question, we must first understand: Why do people imitate others?

The first way of saying it: imitation is learning.

The story also begins with a doll who was violently beaten.

Albert in 1963. Bandura and his colleagues did this experiment:

Find two groups of children, one watching adults aggressively and brutally treat a doll named Bobo, and the other watching adults quietly play with some artisan-type operating toys.

The experimenters then asked the children to play with toys, including the two they had seen before.

But in the beginning, the experimenter deliberately prevented these children from playing with the toys they wanted, in order to create frustration and make them frustrated.

Sure enough, as predicted, the group that saw the experimenters treat Bobo roughly was more aggressive than the other group.

This experiment now seems very simple and in line with our daily experience, but at the time, it was a major experiment that influenced the development of psychology.

Prior to this, the mainstream view in psychology was that people learn through "reinforcement".

Just like training puppies, after doing an action, you get a cookie, the action will be continued, get a slap, and the action will slowly disappear.

albert. Bandura's research shows that people can learn by observing the behavior of others.

This process is known as the "theory of socio-cognitive learning".

This theory is also a reminder of the importance of the right example in educating children.

2、

The second theory is that the "mirror neurons" in the brain are at work.

The story begins with a monkey.

In 1996, Rizzolatti et al. at Pamar University in Italy discovered that when these monkeys received food, a region in the brain (F5) produced neuronal firing activity.

But miraculously, one day, an assistant walked into the lab with an ice cream and suddenly found that the monkey's F5 brain region had the same reaction.

This shows that there is a neuron in the F5 brain region of the monkey that is activated when it is active, and it is also activated when watching others do the same activity.

Therefore, neurons in the F5 region are named mirror neurons.

Later, through brain imaging technology, it was found that mirror neurons also exist in the human brain.

Experiments using eye tracking and measurements found that human infant mirror neurons developed before the age of 1.

It helps babies understand and imitate other people's behaviors, such as mother's expressions, eye movements, sticking out their tongues, etc.

The presence of mirror neurons has two important implications:

1, let us do not have to experience it personally to feel the feelings of others, understand the intentions of others.

2. Matching the behavior of others with their own behavioral systems, responding to the actions of others with their own neural circuits, and promoting interpersonal understanding and communication.

It can be seen that imitation is an important way for people to learn, with both psychological and physiological foundations.

At the same time, it is of great significance for social adaptation and social interaction.

The reason why children imitate older children is because they think of him as a small teacher and learning.

Why choose a child older than yourself?

Because the older children will be more, they can make some actions that the children of the younger age will not do, and say what the younger children will not say.

In the eyes of children, this is the existence of the big guy level, not to mention the child, don't adults also like to learn with the big guy?

On the other hand, compared with imitating adults, imitating children who are slightly older than themselves is more likely to have the feeling of "a little difficult, but they can also learn by hard work", and this difficulty is more conducive to imitation.

I am Mr. Pete, an early education teacher who has been in the industry for 7 years, a positive parent tutor, pay attention to me, and grow up with your children