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
that the other one may catch and return it, -- that the game may