ABSTRACT
Looking into the evolution of imitation opens a veritable Pandora’s box, given the wealth of phenomena that imitation encompasses, the widespread occurrence of imitation in the living world, the plethora of processes that can create imitations, and the lengthy history of scholarly interest. Baldwin (1894) once considered every aspect of life to have an essentially imitative quality, in that a certain replication of previous states is always involved. Imitation has played a central role in evolutionary debates since Darwin’s 1871 publication of The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex because it was seen as one of the keys to unravelling the evolutionary origins of higher human mental faculties. It remains a perennial focus of study in psychology, perhaps because many of the original questions remain unanswered (e.g., Galef, 1988; Mitchell, 1987; Whiten & Ham, 1992). This chapter discusses some recent attempts to shed light on the subject.
