This paper presents a study of the interactive effects of developmental factors, types of tasks, and types of models on imitation. Subjects for the study were 16 boys and 16 girls at each of the ages of 7, 10, and 14 years. Each child was administered two types of imitation tasks: an objective task on which children judged the age of unfamiliar persons from photographs and a subjective task on which children judged the attractiveness of unfamiliar persons from photographs. Tasks were also varied by having models agree or disagree on the age and attractiveness judgments. The model dimension was varied by attributing judgments about selected photographs to parents or to strangers. The first hypothesis for the study suggested that older children would be more capable of differentiating between subjective and objective tasks than younger children and that this in turn would lead to differences in imitation. This hypothesis was confirmed in the models agree condition. The second hypothesis suggested that developmental differences in affective ties to models would influence imitative responses. A more complex interaction was found, however. Results indicated an increase in imitation with age in the strangers agree, strangers disagree and parents disagree conditions, but no change with age in the parents agree condition. Other results indicated significant main effects for age, model and model agreement. Taken together, the results from the study suggest that imitation is influenced by development in interaction with situational factors, including type of task and type of model. (BD)