Empirical findings and theorizations of both imitation and selective trust offer different views on and interpretations of children's social learning mechanisms. The imitation literature provides ample documentation of children's behavioural patterns in the acquisition of socially appropriate norms and practices. The selective trust literature provides insights into children's cognitive processes of choosing credible informants and what information to learn in future interactions. In this paper, we place together findings from both fields and note that they share analogically similar theoretical underpinnings and offer explanations that are complementary to each other. We contend that children's imitative tendency may be due to their selection of in-group members as cultural experts, who serve as reliable sources of conventional information. Moving forward, we note the importance of evaluating individual differences and cultural factors to provide a more holistic understanding of universality and variation in children's social learning mechanisms.

中文翻译：

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我复制你，因为我相信你了解我们的文化：结合模仿和选择性信任文献

模仿和选择性信任的实证研究结果和理论为儿童的社会学习机制提供了不同的观点和解释。模仿文献提供了儿童在获得适合社会的规范和实践过程中的行为模式的充足记录。选择性信任文献提供了关于儿童选择可信信息提供者的认知过程以及在未来互动中学习哪些信息的见解。在本文中，我们将这两个领域的研究结果放在一起，并指出它们具有相似的理论基础，并提供了相互补充的解释。我们认为，儿童的模仿倾向可能是由于他们选择群体内的成员作为文化专家，作为传统信息的可靠来源。展望未来，我们注意到评估个体差异和文化因素的重要性，以便更全面地了解儿童社会学习机制的普遍性和变异性。