Jan M. Engelmann

Young children care more about their reputation with ingroup members and potential reciprocators

Human cooperation depends on individuals caring about their reputation, and so they sometimes attempt to manage them strategically. Here we show that even 5-year-old children strategically manage their reputation. In an experimental setting, children shared significantly more resources with an anonymous recipient when (1) the child watching them could reciprocate later, and (2) the child watching them was an ingroup rather than an outgroup member (as established by minimal group markers). This study is not only the first to show that young children selectively invest in their reputation with specific individuals, but also the first to show that we care more about our reputation with ingroup than with outgroup members.

The effects of being watched on resource acquisition in chimpanzees and human children

Animals react in many different ways to being watched by others. In the context of cooperation, many theories emphasize reputational effects: Individuals should cooperate more if other potential cooperators are watching. In the context of competition, individuals might want to show off their strength and prowess if other potential competitors are watching. In the current study, we observed chimpanzees and human children in three experimental conditions involving resource acquisition: Participants were either in the presence of a passive observer (observed condition), an active observer who engaged in the same task as the participant (competition condition), or in the presence of but not directly observed by a conspecific (mere presence condition). While both species worked to acquire more resources in the competition condition, children but not chimpanzees also worked to acquire more resources in the observer condition (compared to the mere presence condition). These results suggest evolutionary continuity with regard to competition-based observer effects, but an additional observer effect in young children, potentially arising from an evolutionary-based concern for cooperative reputation.

Concern for Group Reputation Increases Prosociality in Young Children.

The motivation to build and maintain a positive personal reputation promotes prosocial behavior. But individuals also identify with their groups, and so it is possible that the desire to maintain or enhance group reputation may have similar effects. Here, we show that 5-year-old children actively invest in the reputation of their group by acting more generously when their group’s reputation is at stake. Children shared significantly more resources with fictitious other children not only when their individual donations were public rather than private but also when their group’s donations (effacing individual donations) were public rather than private. These results provide the first experimental evidence that concern for group reputation can lead to higher levels of prosociality.

The influence of reputational concerns on children's prosociality

While it is well known that reputational concerns promote prosociality in adults, their ontogenetic origins remain poorly understood. Here we review evidence suggesting that the first prosocial acts of young children are not aimed at gaining reputational credit. However, at approximately five years of age, children come to be concerned about their reputations, and their prosocial behaviors show the signature of self-promotional strategies: increased prosociality in public compared to private settings. In middle childhood, at around eight years of age, children acquire further abilities to control the image they project and start to reason explicitly about their reputation. We discuss potential social and cognitive factors-Partner Choice and Theory of Mind-that contribute to the developmental emergence of self-presentational behavior.

Correspondence: Chimpanzee helping is real, not a byproduct

In their recent study, Tennie et al.1 argue that positive instances of chimpanzees helping others can be a byproduct of testing methods1. The study includes a new task where chimpanzees can behave prosocially toward a conspecific either through an action (GO-condition) or by omission (NO-GO condition). The study further aims to test whether stimulus enhancement or carry-over effects from prior experiences explain previous results. We agree that a helping-by-omission task could in principle provide intriguing new evidence for chimpanzee helping. However, here we raise a number of crucial methodological issues that question the current interpretation of the study’s results. Furthermore, the study fails to consider the evidence from prior work addressing these concerns.