ABSTRACT
From the analysis of examples it has been found that one of the important conditions for the learning of imitation is the presence in our own society of hierarchies of individuals who differ greatly in the degree to which they have learned to make independently those responses which are most likely to be rewarded. Children of different ages form such a hierarchy. Because an older child knows better when, where, and how to respond independently to difficult cues in the environment, younger children are often rewarded for learning to imitate or copy older children.
