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Good news for parents who occasionally let out an accidental curse word: kids aren't programmed to automatically mime adults. Kids actually pick and choose what they want to imitate.

Kids flexibly choose when to imitate and when to innovate the behavior of others, according to researchers at The University of Texas at Austin.

"There's nothing children are more interested in than other people," UT Austin psychologist Cristine Legare said in a news release. "Acquiring the skills and practices of their social groups is the fundamental task of childhood."

Researchers said the latest findings reveal that children flexibly adapt their behavior according to instrumental and conventional goals, which they can easily differentiate. Instrumental goals include using forks and knives to cut food and conventional goals include kiss, handshakes and bowing.

"The more carefully you imitate a social convention, the better, more reliable group member you are. Tasks with instrumental goals allow for more innovation," Legare said. "Young children adjust how carefully they imitate and when they innovate, depending on the perceived goal of the behavior or reason for action."

"We are socially oriented in ways that other species are not, and we are very well equipped to acquire and adapt to the culture and skills of previous generations," Legare concluded. "The core insight here is that children adapt their imitative and innovative behavior to different goals, even at very young ages, demonstrating that humans as a species are flexible, social learners. Our research demonstrates that the early-developing distinction between instrumental and conventional behavior is fundamental to cultural learning in our species."

The latest findings were published in the journal Cognition.