information cascade on infants
Do you ever feel like you are so much like your parents? There are so many negligible details like same eating preferences and even ways of behaving. There’s no doubt that your family is one of the biggest influence in your life since the second you come to this world.
My aunt just gave birth to my new nephew and while doing some researches for fun on how to be a good family member. This passage inspires me a lot. Toddlers like those who are one-year-old will learn fastly a bunch of new skills by observing, imitating and then trying from their parents. Dr. Nalven says that “At age 1, toddlers do what they see and mimicry begins at birth– many newborns, for instance, copy facial movements such as sticking out their tongue”. Thus, good suggestions for being good parents are trying to be a good role model, guarantee the safety of your child and distract them when they are doing something dangerous.
However, this passage also reminds me of the stuff we learned in this class: information cascade. It is a situation where person makes their decisions based on the choices of others and even sometimes give up their own personal information. I’m amazed that this concepts can even be applied to the infants who hasn’t much connection with this world. When they see what their family members are doing in daily life and the ways to do it, they will choose to follow and mimic their behaviors. Actually, since they are new to this world, they would’ve millions of ways to start a new thing, normally they will just follow their family members. So adults might have faced many choices but what they should keep in mind is that every move they made will impact unconsciously to their descendants.