The Power of Imitation

Thoughts, feelings, and actions pass from one person to another by means of imitation. Every idea, when it spreads for the first time, meets with resistance; then, if its adherents multiply, people begin to imitate it out of need, and that idea becomes a familiar habit — indeed, a second nature. Imitation is at once a psychological and a social instinct, for it aids the passage of traits from person to person and from group to group — so much so that the imitation practiced by groups may be more worthy of attention than that of individuals, as if there were a single string common to all mankind: when the string is struck in one person, its vibration passes on to the others.

If you wish to know the power of imitation and its work in human life, look at the child. Imitation has a great effect on the child's acquisition of many actions and traits, such as speech, movements, and manners. The child imitates his mother by instinct: he smiles at her and grieves at her grief, and you may even find that the greater part of his games is borrowed from his imitation of his parents. The little girl imitates her mother: she puts her doll to bed, sings to it, feeds it, and takes off its clothes. The boy imitates his father: he plays the father's game, imagines himself a parent, and gets his brothers and playmates to consent to be his children. The power of imitation is great in the child, and the reason for it is his weakness, his ignorance, his susceptibility to influence, and the immaturity of his personality — so much so that we find in him an affection for others: he imitates them because he loves them and copies from them because he finds in them what raises him up. So he makes himself out to be a vendor, or a soldier, or a visitor, or a horseman or a coachman, or a motorcar or a train, imitating these actions and movements as if he thereby sought to prepare himself for social life.

Our belief in the perfection of others leads us to will what they will, so that we incline to follow their pattern and to imitate their actions, their thoughts, their sayings, and their tastes. Imitation binds the imitator to the imitated and calls them to share the same traits and unite in the same inclinations. Individuals imitate one another and so come to resemble one another in speech and grow alike in deeds; for imitation is a means of drawing near and of unification, and a token of admiration and esteem.

Do we not have today particular manners for greeting, for meeting, for sitting in company, for visiting, and for worship? If one of us goes to a dance or to an official ceremony, he puts on a particular dress. Modern civilization has even established particular etiquette for gatherings according to their kinds, and clothes for men and women suited to the seasons and the hours. The reason for this is that every social situation has a pattern of its own. Language, religion, politics, law, wars, and the fine arts — building, music, painting, poetry, and literature — all these are patterns whose parts form a sequence and whose elements are in proportion. And every age has its own language, music, and manners, in accord with the conditions of the social environment. A man needs nothing more, to be at one with his fellows, than to imitate them; and no sooner does his imitation extend to a few general matters than he becomes like others outwardly and inwardly.