liefs, and intentions, given
similar circumstances. Looked at from without, they might be said to
be engaged in "imitating" one another. In the sense that they are doing
much the same sort of thing in much the same sort of way, this would be
true enough. But "imitation" throws no light upon why they so act; it
repeats the fact as an explanation of itself. It is an explanation of
the same order as the famous saying that opium puts men to sleep because
of its dormitive power.

Objective likeness of acts and the mental satisfaction found in being in
conformity with others are baptized by the name imitation. This social
fact is then taken for a psychological force, which produced the
likeness. A considerable portion of what is called imitation is simply
the fact that persons being alike in structure respond in the same way
to like stimuli. Quite independently of imitation, men on being insulted
get angry and attack the insulter. This statement may be met by citing
the undoubted fact that response to an insult takes place in different
ways in groups having different customs. In one group, it may be met by
recourse to fisticuffs, in another by a challenge to a duel, in a third
by an exhibition of contemptuous disregard. This happens, so it is said,
because the model set for imitation is different. But there is no need
to appeal to imitation. The mere fact that customs are different means
that the actual stimuli to behavior are different. Conscious instruction
plays a part; prior approvals and disapprovals have a large influence.
Still more effective is the fact that unless an individual acts in the
way current in his group, he is literally out of it. He can associate
with others on intimate and equal terms only by behaving in the way in
which they behave. The pressure that comes from the fact that one is
let into the group action by acting in one way and shut out by acting
in another way is unremitting. What is called the effect of imitation
is mainly the product of conscious instruction and of the selective
influence exercised by the unconscious confirmations and ratifications
of those with whom one associates.

Suppose that some one rolls a ball to a child; he catches it and rolls
it back, and the game goes on. Here the stimulus is not just the
sight of the ball, or the sight of the other rolling it. It is the
situation--the game which is playing. The response is not merely rolling
the ball back; it is rolling it back so t