Herbert A. Simon

Herbert A. Simon appears in the book as a theorist of imitation rather than as a participant in its historical episodes. His account supplies a name for the human willingness to follow elders and influential people, while the book qualifies that account by stressing that imitation can be assessed rather than accepted blindly.

Simon’s Account of Imitation

In a 1990 article in Science, Simon used the term “docility” to describe people’s willingness to mimic those who are older or influential in society. The term treats imitation as a significant mechanism of social learning: people may adopt behavior from others instead of working out every choice independently.

The Book’s Qualification

The book explicitly distinguishes its own account from Simon’s. It says that Simon seemed to argue that most people were unable to distinguish—or uninterested in distinguishing—imitations that made sense from those that did not. Against that emphasis, the book’s treatment leaves room for judgment: following others is not necessarily mindless, because people may evaluate whether a borrowed practice is sensible.

Role in the Book’s Argument

Simon’s concept gives the discussion a compact name for the pull of social influence, but the qualification prevents imitation from becoming a complete explanation of how people learn. The contrast is consequential: social transmission can spread behavior, yet the book asks readers to consider how people discriminate among models and practices. Simon thus serves as a point of comparison in the argument about imitation, not as an unqualified authority for the book’s position.