Therefore, is preferred to its Latinate synonym, “imitative,” in describing human relations, since the latter term most often implies an awareness and conscious choice to copy others’ behavior.
This is rarely the case except in consumer fashion and advertising and in financial speculation; it is never the case for the human infant who learns by miming and matching gestures and sounds from adult models. Mimesis is much less conscious and deliberate than we imagine in our adult behavior with one another.