is senior research fellow in theoretical life sciences at All Souls College, University of Oxford, and president of the Experimental Psychology Societ

Our thinking devices – imitation, mind-reading, language and others – are neither hard-wired nor designed by genetic evolution

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2024-11-19 08:00:05

is senior research fellow in theoretical life sciences at All Souls College, University of Oxford, and president of the Experimental Psychology Society. Her most recent book is Cognitive Gadgets: The Cultural Evolution of Thinking (2018). She lives in Oxford and London.

Bookshops are wonderful places – and not all the good stuff is in books. A few months ago, I spotted a man standing in the philosophy section of a local bookshop with his daughter, aged three or four. Dad was nose-deep in a tome, and his daughter was taking care of herself. But rather than wreaking havoc with the genres or scribbling on a flyleaf, she was doing exactly as her father was: with the same furrowed brow, bowed posture and chin-stroking fingers, this small child was gazing intently at a book of mathematical logic.

Children are masters of imitation. Copying parents and other adults is how they learn about their social world – about the facial expressions and body movements that allow them to communicate, gain approval and avoid rejection. Imitation has such a powerful influence on development, for good and ill, that child-protection agencies across the world run campaigns reminding parents to be role models. If you don’t want your kids to scream at other children, don’t scream at them.

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