Model Reward and Imitation: The Effect of the Presence of the Experimenter and the Model Rewarder

Summary

To assess the effects of the presence of the experimenter (E) and/or modelrewarder (MR), elementary school children observed a model emit specific sequences on a button pressing task in two separate experiments (N = 50 and N = 80). The first design was a 2 × 2 factorial involving the presence-absence of the E/MR and model reward vs. model no-consequences; the second design was a 4 × 2 factorial with all possible combinations of presence-absence of the E and/or MR, and model reward vs. model no-consequences. It was found that model reward increased imitation only in the condition in which the E was present and the MR was absent.