The authors present not only a theoretical analysis of these problems but also experiments on rats and children where the problem has been to teach the subject to imitate. There is a discussion of crowd behavior, an analysis of a case of lynching, and a discussion of the diffusion of culture. Appendices present a revision of Holt's theory of imitation and a historical review of the general topic. "Our position is that if there are any innate connections between stimuli and responses of the initiative type, they are few and isolated." "In summary, imitation can greatly hasten the process of independent learning by enabling the subject to perform the first correct response sooner than he otherwise would… . In order for imitation to elicit the first correct response, the essential units of copying or matched-dependent behavior must already have been learned." (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)