“Watch me − This is how it should be done!” The effect of normative language on preschoolers’ overimitation occurs only in the lab but not at home

Preschoolers often imitate actions that are causally irrelevant, a phenomenon called "overimitation (OI)". The present study examines how task context and language framing influence OI. A total of 160 four- to five-year-old German children from predominantly middle- to high-socioeconomic backgrounds participated in the study. All children performed the same OI task under four different conditions. They observed an adult model who demonstrated functional and non-functional actions before they themselves were allowed to retrieve a cookie from a transparent jar which could easily be opened by unscrewing the lid. This task was conducted either in a laboratory setting with an unfamiliar experimenter as model or at each child's home with their caregiver as model. In both contexts, either a normative or a non-normative verbal instruction was used, resulting in a 2 × 2 between-subjects design. OI scores were not significantly affected by framing or context alone. However, a significant interaction was found between the two factors: a normative language led to more OI in the lab-context, but did not affect OI-scores in the home context. Implications of these findings for children's sensitivity to context conditions and language framing in observational learning are discussed.