Group imitation is another theory to explain the communication mechanism in collective behavior. Imitation is a concept put forward by French social psychologist Tarde. In his book "The Law of Imitation" published by 1890, he thinks that everything in society is either invention or imitation, and "imitation is the most basic social phenomenon". Imitation can be divided into unconscious imitation and interesting imitation. The former is an individual's reflective imitation of others' behavior in an unconscious state, while the latter is a conscious imitation based on a certain motive or purpose. People's learning in the process of socialization can also be said to be a conscious imitation or conscious imitation.

However, imitation in collective behavior, especially in high-density people, is completely different from imitation as a learning process. In short, imitation in collective behavior is more unconscious and conditional imitation. This is because when people are faced with sudden or catastrophic events, it is difficult to deal with this situation with conventional methods. Reaction is generally based on instinct, and the simplest and most labor-saving reaction is to directly imitate the behavior of people around you, so there is mutual imitation. Psychology believes that this imitation is closely related to people's safety (or defense) instinct. In an emergency with high uncertainty, everyone wants to be consistent with most people present and regard it as the most effective safety choice. However, the result of this irrational mutual imitation may be the most unsafe. For example, when a movie theater catches fire, a person runs to the exit, and all the audience follow, causing the exit to be blocked, which is much more dangerous than calmly responding.