Two Gaps in Studying High‐Fidelity Imitation Across Diverse Childhood Ecologies

ABSTRACTRecent empirical investigations have concentrated primarily on studying imitation as a social tool that satisfies social motivations, while other potential reasons for and forms of imitation have attracted less attention. These investigations have also focused on studying the role of pedagogy in imitative learning and set up most experiments in a pedagogical framework. In this article, we present two gaps in studying high‐fidelity imitation. First, social motivation may not be the only motivation, especially in less socially stratified communities. Second, imitative learning in observational contexts is understudied. We discuss these gaps by providing examples of alternative imitative learning scenarios and aspects that may have been overlooked and thus underexplored. Moving forward, cross‐cultural investigations targeting other aspects and forms of imitative learning can provide insights into how observational and pedagogical learning together foster effective learning across diverse childhood ecologies.