Psychology of Children's Imitation (Experimental Psychological Research)

We continue to introduce our readers to the history of the cultural-historical psychology. This time we are offering you the first part of a previously unpublished manuscript by L.I. Bozhovich and L.S. Slavina, L.S. Vygotsky's disciples. It is an experimental study on children's imitation that was carried out in 1929 when the authors were second-year students at the Moscow State University. The article analyses the main theoretical approaches to studying imitation and draws a distinction between the imitation in animals and humans, between the natural and cultural imitation. It reviews the problem of imitation within the context of higher forms of behaviour development and provides the theoretical grounds for the hypothesis on genetic steps in imitation, its types, structure and functions in human behaviour. The higher type of imitation included in intellectual forms behaviour was chosen as a research object.