WHAT IS MIMETIC DESIRE

This essay provides a conceptual analysis and reconstruction of the no tion of mimetic desire, first proposed in Girard (1961). The basic ide a behind the idea of mimetic desire is that imitation can play a key r ole in human motivational processes. Yet mimetic desire is distinguish ed from related notions such as social modelling and imitation. In epi sodes of mimetic desire, the process in which the imitative agent's de sires are formed is oriented by a particular species of belief about t he model or mediator whose desire is copied. These 'tutelary beliefs' essential to mimetic desire are distinguished from the 'thin' and pure ly instrumental beliefs about the model central to Bandura's (1986) so cial cognitive theory and similar models of observational learning. Th e problem of the identity of the objects of desire in episodes of soci al modelling motivates a distinction between internal and external for ms of interpersonal mediation. Girard's claims about cognitive constra ints associated with mimetic desire are examined, and scenarios of rec iprocal mimetic modelling are analysed.