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R E S E A R CH A R T I C L E

Examining the social influence of reputation for partner productivity level on the collaborative task performance of young children

Hikaru Hamamoto1 | Risa Mizobata1 | Mitsuhiko Ishikawa1 |

Shoji Itakura2

1Department of Psychology, Graduate School of Letters, Kyoto University, Kyoto, Japan

2Center for Baby Science, Doshisha University, Kizugawa, Japan

Correspondence

Mitsuhiko Ishikawa, Department of

Psychology, Graduate School of Letters,

Kyoto University, Yoshida-Honmachi, Kyoto

606-8501, Japan.

Email: [email protected]

Funding information

Japan Society for the Promotion of Science,

Grant/Award Number: 16H06301

Abstract

Humans adjust behaviour in the presence of others in a phe-

nomenon called social influence, which can be categorized

into social facilitation (promotional effects) and social loafing

(inhibitory effects). The study examined whether the produc-

tivity level of the partner in individual and collaborative tasks

produced a social influence on children's task performance.

The participants were aged 4- to 6-years-old and grouped as

high-productivity, low-productivity, and control according to

the productivity level of the partners. Experiments 1 and

2 assigned adults and young peers as partners, respectively.

Children's performance in the collaborative task decreased

compared with the individual task. This effect was

unobserved when the adult partner was highly productive

but occurred regardless of productivity level when the part-

ner was a peer. Positive correlations were also observed

between children's and partners' performance in both experi-

ments. The results thus suggested that young children adjust

their behaviour based on the partner's actions.

Highlights

• The social influence of partner's productivity level on

young children's task performance was examined during

a collaborative task.

• Children performed individual and collaborative tasks with

an adult (Experiment 1) or child partner (Experiment 2).

Received: 7 May 2020 Revised: 25 October 2020 Accepted: 21 November 2020

DOI: 10.1002/icd.2213

Inf Child Dev. 2021;30:e2213. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/icd © 2020 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd 1 of 14

https://doi.org/10.1002/icd.2213

• Positive correlations were observed between children's

and partners' performance in both experiments.

K E YWORD S

children, joint action, social facilitation, social influence, social

loafing

1 | INTRODUCTION

When people work on tasks, the presence or absence of others influences their behaviour, attitudes, and emotions.

In general, these effects are referred to as social influence (Raven, 1965). Previous studies suggested that social influ-

ence can be categorized into two types, namely, social facilitation and social loafing (Harkins, 1987).

1.1 | Social facilitation

Social facilitation is a phenomenon in which the amount of work is increased when working as a group compared

with working alone on a task (Guerin, 2010). Previous studies on adults report social facilitation during task perfor-

mance in laboratory settings (Aiello & Svec, 1993; Woods, Dautenhahn, & Kaouri, 2005). For instance, using memory

tasks, Meade, Nokes, and Morrow (2009) demonstrate that when two participants memorized a given scenario at

the same time, they showed better performance compared with memorizing alone.

From the developmental perspective, previous studies show that children between 1- and 3-years-old can engage

in cooperative behaviours in which multiple people act towards the same goal (for a review, see Brownell, 2011). For

example, when two toddlers collaborate to remove a toy from a box or cylinder, 24-month-old dyads succeeded multi-

ple times, whereas 18-month-old dyads did so infrequently. However, 12-month-old dyads were unsuccessful. These

results suggest that children may collaborate from approximately 2 years of age (Brownell & Carriger, 1990).

Moreover, researchers illustrate that in cooperative situations, as in the case of adults, social facilitation occurs

in early childhood. The research on social facilitation in children dates back to Triplett (1898). When instructed to

turn a fishing rod reel, Triplett reported that children performed the task faster when working with others than work-

ing alone. Furthermore, Arterberry, Cain, and Chopko (2007) focused on 5-year-old children who were instructed to

complete puzzles of varying levels of difficulty either alone or with a peer partner. Half the children were informed

that they were being evaluated, whereas half were not. The results revealed that the children demonstrated social

facilitation with the easy puzzle because they displayed better task performance with a partner compared with work-

ing alone and with awareness of being evaluated. Park and Lee (2015) examined social facilitation in preschoolers

using a classification task, in which multiple objects were classified according to their features, and a perspective-

taking task, in which the participants' imagined the thoughts and feelings of characters in a story. Children conducted

tasks either alone or with a peer partner. Both tasks were performed better when working with a partner than work-

ing individually, and social facilitation occurred in both tasks. Thus, developmental studies revealed that social facilita-

tion during collaborative tasks can be observed in children from the age of 5-years-old.

1.2 | Social loafing

Alternatively, social loafing is a phenomenon in which individuals expend less effort when working collectively than

individually (Karau & Williams, 1993). In a study with adult participants, Latané, Williams, and Harkins (1979)

2 of 14 HAMAMOTO ET AL.

reported that when asked to enter a room alone or in groups and clap and shout to make as much noise as possible,

the participants made less noise in the group than the alone condition. When asked to wear headphones and blind-

folds, such that they were unaware of how others in the group were doing their tasks, and were asked to shout as

loudly as possible, the participants made less noise in the group than the alone condition. This finding indicated that

social loafing occurred when working with others.

Social loafing may occur in preschool children as well. In the abovementioned experiment by Arterberry

et al. (2007), children performed poorly on the easy puzzle when working with a peer partner compared with working

alone and if they were unaware of being evaluated. Thus, studies on adults and young children suggest that simply

performing tasks with others cannot determine whether social influence leads to behaviours consistent with facilita-

tion or loafing.

1.3 | Partner characteristics and social influence in young children

In the fields of educational and developmental psychology, studies on social influence tended to focus on promoting

cooperative behaviour and improving learning in young children. These studies suggested that social facilitation of

learning efficiency is likely to occur when preschoolers and young children learn new skills and knowledge by work-

ing with highly skilled infants or others who are more capable, such as adults (Piaget, 1968; Rogoff, 1990, 2003;

Vygotsky, 1978; for reviews, see Azmitia, 1988; Foley, Ratner, & House, 2002; Forman, Minick, & Stone, 1993;

Garton & Pratt, 2001; Maynard & Martini, 2005; Pine & Messer, 1998; Tudge & Winterhoff, 1993).

Partner characteristics may be influential not only in learning situations but also in adjusting the social influence

of collaborative tasks. Haux, Engelmann, Herrmann, and Tomasello (2017) reported that children were instructed to

select a puppet with which to play a game and asked which puppet helps a child participant to win. The children

based their choice on information about the puppet's social characteristics (linguistically instructed reliability). The

study further demonstrated that 5-year-old children gave negative information more weight, thus strongly avoiding

puppets characterized as unreliable. A partner's characteristics can influence partner selection in a collaborative task.

Thus, the partner's characteristics can also be considered to influence performance in a collaborative task. Specifi-

cally, a possibility exists that social facilitation, such as that of learning as demonstrated in previous studies

(Maynard & Martini, 2005), may be more likely to occur when a task is performed with a partner who is likely to

achieve a high result for the goal (e.g., a partner with high productivity, competence, or reliability).

Moreover, previous studies illustrated that the ability of partners to work together influences learning efficiency

(Garton & Pratt, 2001). However, the mechanism in which partner characteristics influence performance efficiency

in collaborative tasks is unclear (i.e., partner's social influence). Nevertheless, the notion that partner characteristics

as determinants of the occurrence of social facilitation or social loafing is possible. Thus, the present study aimed to

examine how partner characteristics influence performance efficiency in collaborative tasks. In two experiments,

information about the partner's productivity level was manipulated to examine how this aspect influences the perfor-

mance efficiency of the other partner.

The objective of the study was to investigate the social influence of information about a partner's productivity

level on the task performance of young children. Previous studies illustrated that social facilitation and loafing start

at approximately 5 years of age (Arterberry et al., 2007; Park & Lee, 2015). In the present study, children aged 4 to

6 years underwent two experiments. Scholars have suggested that young children learn new things more efficiently

by working with a partner who is more capable (Azmitia, 1988; Foley et al., 2002; Garton & Pratt, 2001; Pine &

Messer, 1998; Tudge & Winterhoff, 1993). Therefore, the study predicted that the performance of children will

improve when performing a task with a highly capable partner on the premise that the ability of a partner influences

children's learning efficiency in collaborative tasks. In Experiment 1, young children were paired with adult partners

in a collaborative task. Capability was considered different between adult and child partners; thus, the children were

paired with peer partners in Experiment 2.

HAMAMOTO ET AL. 3 of 14

2 | EXPERIMENT 1

In Experiment 1, young children were paired with adult partners to examine the social influence of informa-

tion about partner characteristics (level of productivity) on the children's task performance. Previous studies

proposed that 5-year-old children exhibit social facilitation and loafing (Arterberry et al., 2007; Park &

Lee, 2015). Thus, the study recruited children aged 4 to 6 years as participants. The objective of the present

study was to clarify the social influence of partner characteristics (productivity level) by comparing the differ-

ence in the number of stickers that participants can place in 1 min in an individual task compared with a

collaborative task.

2.1 | Methods

2.1.1 | Participants

The participants consisted of a total of 81 children (mean age 68 months, SD = 7.83, range = 56–80 months),

which included 17 4-year-old children (10 boys and 7 girls), 36 5-year-old children (18 boys and 18 girls), and 28

6-year-old children (13 boys and 15 girls). Eight additional children participated in the experiment but were

excluded from analysis because data could not be obtained or due to procedural deficiencies. All participants

were Japanese. The sample size was determined according to Arterberry et al. (2007), who examined the social

influence on child behaviour with between-subject factors. In addition, post hoc power analysis was conducted

with G*Power (Erdfelder, Faul, & Buchner, 1996) using the effect size of interaction between groups and task

conditions. The result indicated that with the present sample, 95% power with alpha at .05 was achieved for

determining the interaction between groups and task conditions. All participants attended a public kindergarten in

Osaka or Kyoto Prefecture. Two university students participated in the experiment as adult partners for the col-

laborative task. The adult partners were balanced between high and low productivity. The parents of the child

participants were briefed on the purpose and content of the research and provided written informed consent for

the participation of the children. The Research Ethics Review Board of Department of Psychology, Kyoto Univer-

sity, Japan, approved the experimental protocol.

2.1.2 | Materials and experimental environment

A board with an illustration of a tree (printed on A4 paper) and round stickers (approximately 1.5 cm) were used for

the task. The stickers used by the adult partners were marked with black dots to distinguish from those used by the

child participants. To control the task time, the experimenter measured time using a stopwatch.

2.1.3 | Experimental conditions

The child participants were given information about the productivity level of their partner (i.e., high-productivity,

low-productivity, and control), and condition was treated as a between-subject factor.

The participants were randomly assigned to one of the three groups: high-productivity = 25 participants, low-

productivity = 27 participants, and control group = 29 participants.

In the high-productivity group, the participants were informed that their partner was good at applying stickers.

However, the opposite information was provided for the low-productivity group. In the control group, the partici-

pants were not given any information about the ability of their partners to apply stickers.

4 of 14 HAMAMOTO ET AL.

2.1.4 | Procedure

Three people were present during the experiment, namely, one child participant, one adult partner, and one experi-

menter. The child participant and adult partner sat side-by-side in chairs during the task. When the child participant

worked on the individual task, the adult partner sat in the same room with their back to the child. The experimenter

sat on the opposite side and watched them work on their tasks. On the desk, a sheet of stickers was provided for

the child and adult to use in the task. The adult partners used stickers with black dots to distinguish from those used

by the child participants. Both were given instructions to perform two tasks, namely, an individual task and a collabo-

rative task. The order of the tasks was counterbalanced.

2.1.5 | Individual task

Before the individual task, the experimenter explained to the children that their task was to place a round sticker on

the board with the illustration of a tree. The participants were then asked whether they were good at placing stickers

on the board, to which they responded that they were either good or bad. The children were then instructed to apply

as many stickers to the board as possible within 1 min. To motivate the children to engage in the task, they were told

that the total number of stickers for one child will be compared with those applied by other children. While engaging

in the individual task, the adult partners turned their backs to avoid seeing the children work on the task. Task time

was measured with the stopwatch, and the children's actions during the task were recorded.

2.1.6 | Joint task

The child participant and adult partner sat side by side. The experimenter explained to both that the task was to

place round stickers on the board with the tree illustration. The participants were then asked whether they were

good at placing stickers on the board. After answering, the participants in the high- and low-productivity groups

were asked whether they were also good at placing stickers on the board. In the high-productivity group, the adult

partners replied that they are good at applying stickers, whereas those in the low-productivity group replied that

they are bad at applying stickers.

To ensure understanding of their partner's productivity level, the child participants were asked whether their

partner was good at applying stickers. The question was repeated until the participant's answer matched the part-

ner's productivity level. Approximately 77% of the children provided correct answers to the partner's productivity

level at the first instance. In the control group, the adult partners were not asked about their productivity level.

Instead, they immediately moved to the task instruction.

The experimenter explained to the children and adults that they should work together to place as many stickers on

the board as possible in 1 min. They were also told that their total number of stickers will be compared with those

applied by other child participants. During the joint task, the adult partner maintained the speed of applying stickers. The

adult partners in the high-productivity, low-productivity, and control groups applied approximately 20 (mean = 21.56,

SD = 3.77), 10 (mean = 9.11, SD = 1.96), and 15 stickers (mean = 14.59, SD = 4.50) stickers, respectively.

The task time was measured with the stopwatch, and the participants' actions during the task were recorded.

2.2 | Results

The Shapiro–Wilk test was used to assess the normality of the distributions. All data presented a normal distribution.

Table 1 shows the average number of stickers placed by the participants for each condition. A repeated measures

HAMAMOTO ET AL. 5 of 14

ANOVA was conducted to examine differences in the mean number of stickers across groups (high-productivity,

low-productivity, and control), task conditions (individual and joint), and age (4-, 5-, and 6-years-old). As a result, a

significant interaction between groups and task conditions was observed, F(2,72) = 3.717, p = .29, ηp 2 = .094. After-

ward, a series of Bonferroni-corrected follow-up pairwise comparisons were performed. The number of stickers

applied in the joint task was significantly decreased than the individual task in the low-productivity (p = .006,

ηp 2 = .101) and control (p = .017, ηp

2 = .076) groups. No difference between task conditions was found for the high-

productivity group (p = .343, ηp 2 = .013).

In addition, a significant main effect of condition was found, whereas the number of stickers applied in the joint

task was significantly decreased than the individual task, F(2,72) = 4.902, p = .030, ηp 2 = .064. This result suggests

that the child participants exhibited social loafing in the collaborative task. No other interactions and main effects

reached significance: group × task conditions × age: F(2,72) = 1.963, p = .109, ηp 2 = .098; task conditions × age: F

(2,72) = 1.043, p = .358, ηp 2 = .028; group: F(2,72) = 0.316, p = .730, ηp

2 = .009; age: F(2,72) = 0.431, p = .651,

ηp 2 = .012.

The speed of the adult partner's behaviour during the collaborative task can influence the child participants' per-

formance, a correlation analysis was conducted to examine whether a relationship exists between the number of

stickers placed by the child participants and those by the adult partners. The correlation was significant and positive

(r = 0.521, p < .001), which indicates that the child participants adjusted their performance to match the performance

of the adult partners (Figure 1).

For further examination of the children's adjustment of their performance to their partner, the study examined

whether the partners placed fewer stickers in the joint task than those placed by the children in the individual task.

The t test indicated that the partners in the joint task placed fewer stickers than in the individual task (partner aver-

age vs. individual average: 14.91 vs. 16.95, p = .017). This finding suggests that the children adjusted their perfor-

mance to that of their partner.

TABLE 1 Average number of stickers placed by participants for each condition in Experiment 1

Task Group Age Mean SD

Individual High productivity 4-years-old 13.0 3.6

5-years-old 17.0 2.8

6-years-old 16.0 5.5

Low-productivity 4-years-old 19.3 3.8

5-years-old 15.9 4.2

6-years-old 18.4 4.4

Control 4-years-old 14.9 4.5

5-years-old 18.4 3.3

6-years-old 18.2 6.4

Joint High productivity 4-years-old 16.7 4.7

5-years-old 15.7 3.2

6-years-old 16.3 3.9

Low-productivity 4-years-old 17.2 5.1

5-years-old 15.0 4.1

6-years-old 14.7 3.5

Control 4-years-old 12.4 4.7

5-years-old 18.1 3.5

6-years-old 15.7 5.5

6 of 14 HAMAMOTO ET AL.

2.3 | Discussion

Experiment 1 aimed to examine whether the task performance of the child participants was influenced by informa-

tion about the productivity level of their adult partners during the collaborative task. The study predicted that the

children's performance will be facilitated when performing tasks with a high-productivity partner. The results illus-

trated that the children's performance during the collaborative task was decreased in the low-productivity or control

group. Correlation analysis between the number of stickers applied by children compared to that of adult partners

during the collaborative task indicated that the more stickers the adults applied, the more stickers the children

applied.

Experiment 1 demonstrated that young children may engage in social loafing when performing collaborative

tasks with adult partners who are not highly productive. The results of the correlation analysis denoted that children

were influenced by the behaviour of their partners in the collaborative task. Joint actions are defined as a social

interaction in which two or more people spatiotemporally coordinate their actions to cause an environmental change

(Sebanz, Bekkering, & Knoblich, 2006). A previous study on cooperative behaviour reported that even when partners

were not instructed to synchronize their behaviour, the behaviour of each partner was automatically synchronized.

For example, synchronization has been reported in repetitive physical exercises, such as leg shaking (Schmidt, Care-

llo, & Turvey, 1990), hand-rocking vibrators (Schmidt & Turvey, 1994), rocking chairs (Richardson, Marsh, Isenhower,

Goodman, & Schmidt, 2007), finger swinging (Oullier, De Guzman, Jantzen, Lagarde, & Scott Kelso, 2008), and walk-

ing (Zivotofsky, Gruendlinger, & Hausdorff, 2012; Zivotofsky & Hausdorff, 2007). In Experiment 1 of the present

study, the participants were only instructed to place as many stickers as possible. No further instructions were pro-

vided regarding the order and speed of sticker placement. The children may have voluntarily monitored the behav-

iour of the adult partners during the collaborative tasks and may have been influenced by the engagement of the

partner's behaviours.

Thus, Experiment 1 demonstrated that young children were influenced by their partner's behaviour because the

children exhibited social loafing during the collaborative task with adult partners. However, previous studies

F IGURE 1 Correlation between the number of stickers sealed by partners and participants. The vertical axis shows the number of seals for the participants during the task, whereas the horizontal axis denotes the number of seals for the partner. The dotted line indicates a linear approximation straight line

HAMAMOTO ET AL. 7 of 14

suggested that social loafing occurs when high expectations are placed on the ability of partners and teammates dur-

ing collaborative tasks (Hardy & Crace, 1991a, 1991b). Therefore, the notion that social loafing was induced because

the partner was an adult is possible regardless of information about their productivity level. In Experiment 2, same-

age young children (peers) were assigned as partners to exclude the influence of the partner as an adult.

3 | EXPERIMENT 2

In Experiment 2, a peer partner was assigned to eliminate the possibility that social loafing occurred because the

partner was an adult.

3.1 | Method

3.1.1 | Participants

A total of 80 children (mean age = 63 months, SD = 5.87 months, range = 54–77 months) participated in Experiment

2. This group included 26 4-year-old children (10 boys and 16 girls), 46 5-year-old children (23 boys and 23 girls),

and 8 6-year-old children (5 boys and 3 girls). No participants took part in Experiments 1 and 2. Thirteen additional

children participated in Experiment 2 but were excluded from analysis as either data could not be obtained when

children interrupted the task before completing it or due to procedural deficiencies. The participants were Japanese.

The sample size was determined to match Experiment 1. All participants attended a public kindergarten in Osaka

Prefecture. The parents were informed about the purpose and content of the research, who provided written

informed consent for the participation of their children. Information about the productivity level of the partners

(high-productivity, low-productivity, and control) was treated as a between-subject factor. The participants were

divided into three groups, namely, high-productivity (n = 26), low-productivity (n = 28), and control (n = 26).

3.1.2 | Procedure

The same task in Experiment 1 was used in Experiment 2. Its only difference from Experiment 1 was that peers were

assigned as partners in the collaborative task. The actual productivity of the peer partner was not manipulated in

Experiment 2. Only one of the children was given information about the partner's productivity by the experimenter;

thus only one data point per pair was acquired. The other child of the pair who was not given information of the

partner's productivity was instructed to work together with the partner to place as many stickers on the board as

possible in 1 min. In addition, children from the productivity groups were told that their total number of stickers will

be compared with those of other child participants. The children were randomly assigned as pairs in a kindergarten

to avoid the effects of familiarity. To ensure understanding of their partner's productivity level, the child participants

were asked whether their partner was good at applying stickers. The question was repeated until the participant's

answer matched the partner's productivity level. Approximately 72% of the children provided the correct answer at

the first instance.

3.2 | Results

The Shapiro–Wilk test was used to assess the normality of the distributions. All data presented a normal distribution.

Table 2 displays the average number of stickers placed by the participants for each condition. A repeated measures

8 of 14 HAMAMOTO ET AL.

ANOVA was used to examine differences in the mean number of stickers across groups (high-productivity, low-pro-

ductivity, and control), task conditions (individual and joint), and age (4-, 5-, and 6-years-old). A significant main effect

of condition was observed, and the number of stickers applied in the joint task was significantly decreased than the

individual task, F(2,72) = 4.902, p = .030, ηp 2 = .064. The result suggests that the child participants exhibited social

loafing in the collaborative task. In addition, the results revealed a significant main effect of age, F(2,72) = 7.296,

p = .01, ηp 2 = .169. and 4-year-old children applied less stickers than 5- (p = .002) and 6-year-old (p = .009) children.

No other interactions and main effects reached significance: group × task conditions × age: F(2,72) = 0.747, p = .527,

ηp 2 = .030; group × task conditions: F(2,72) = 0.852, p = .431, ηp

2 = .023; task conditions × age: F(2,72) = 0.418,

p = .660, ηp 2 = .011; group: F(2,72) = .324, p = .724, ηp

2 = .009.

The speed of the partner's behaviour during the collaborative task can possibly influence the participants' perfor-

mance. Thus, correlation analysis was conducted to examine whether a relationship exists between the number of

stickers placed by the participants and those of their partners (Figure 2). The correlation was significant and positive

(r = 0.292, p = .009), which indicates that the more stickers the partner placed, the more stickers the participant

placed (Figure 2).

For further examination of children's adjustment of their performance to their partner, the study examined

whether partners placed fewer stickers in the joint task than those placed by children in the individual task. The

t test indicated that the partners in the joint task placed fewer stickers than those in the individual task (partner aver-

age vs. individual average: 19.59 vs. 21.32, p = .009), which suggests that children adjust their performance to their

partner.

3.3 | Discussion

Experiment 2 aimed to investigate whether the task performance of the children was influenced by information

about the productivity level of their peer partner during the collaborative task.

TABLE 2 Average number of stickers placed by participants for each condition in Experiment 2

Task Group Age Mean SD

Individual High productivity 4-years-old 20.6 5.2

5-years-old 21.4 3.4

6-years-old 23.5 2.4

Low-productivity 4-years-old 19.4 4.1

5-years-old 22.4 3.5

6-years-old 20.7 4.1

Control 4-years-old 17.2 5.9

5-years-old 22.6 3.4

6-years-old 24.3 4.3

Joint High productivity 4-years-old 17.2 3.8

5-years-old 19.2 3.6

6-years-old 18.5 2.4

Low-productivity 4-years-old 17.1 3.8

5-years-old 20.4 3.3

6-years-old 18.5 3.9

Control 4-years-old 14.6 7.3

5-years-old 20.0 3.2

6-years-old 22.5 3.0

HAMAMOTO ET AL. 9 of 14

In this experiment, information about the partner's productivity level did not influence the difference in the

participants' performance in the collaborative task compared with the individual task. This finding was inconsis-

tent with the hypothesis that performing tasks with a highly productive partner will facilitate performance. Analy-

sis of the performance of the participants during the collaborative task indicated that the number of stickers

decreased in the collaborative compared with the individual task regardless of the partner's level of productivity.

In other words, even when the partner was a young peer, social loafing was observed in children. Correlation

analysis of Experiments 1 and 2 revealed that the participants' performance was associated with their partner's

performance in the collaborative task, as evidenced by the participants' tendency to place more stickers relative

to their partners.

4 | GENERAL DISCUSSION

In Experiments 1 and 2, children exhibited social loafing behaviour except when the adult partner was highly produc-

tive. Seemingly, whether the partner was an adult or a peer had a stronger social influence than information about

the partner's productivity level.

In both experiments, children generally demonstrated social loafing during the collaborative task. Harkins (1987)

pointed to the presence or absence of evaluation concerns as a factor for social loafing. The author argued that a

reduction in individual evaluation concerns in the co-behavioural setting was a factor in the occurrence of social

loafing. In addition, Arterberry et al. (2007) empirically demonstrated that the presence or absence of evaluation is a

determinative factor for whether social loafing or social facilitation occurs in 5-year-old children. The authors further

revealed that children showed social facilitation when individual performance was evaluated by an observer during

the collaborative task, whereas social loafing occurred when their performance was not evaluated during the collabo-

rative task.

F IGURE 2 Correlation between the numbers of stickers affixed by partners and participants. The vertical axis denotes the number of seals for the participants during the task, whereas the horizontal axis indicates the number of seals for the partner

10 of 14 HAMAMOTO ET AL.

Harkins (1987) argued that social influence is associated with an individual's concerns about how their perfor-

mance will be evaluated against others and examined how evaluation concerns influence social influence under four

conditions, namely, (a) individual and no evaluation, (b) individual and evaluated, (c) collaborative and no evaluation,

and (d) collaborative and evaluated. As a result, the participants displayed better performance in the collaborative

condition when performance was evaluated than in the individual and evaluated condition and individual and no

evaluated condition. This finding indicates the occurrence of social facilitation. Conversely, when participants were

not evaluated in the collaborative condition, the performance of the group was lower than that under the evaluated

condition, which indicates social loafing. In other words, the presence or absence of evaluation concerns about per-

formance is considered to be a factor for the occurrence of social facilitation or loafing. A recent study examining

social influence on child behaviour in a cooperative context with a modified version of the marshmallow test demon-

strated that children were more willing to invest effort by delaying gratification in a cooperative context compared

with an individual task (Koomen, Grueneisen, & Herrmann, 2020). Thus, the present study inferred that children may

be more engaging in the collaborative context when they can expect later rewards, such as positive evaluation by

others.

The study did not evaluate the performance of individuals in the collaborative task as the main objective was to

examine the social influence of information about a partner's productivity level. Instead, the children were instructed

that their total number of pairs of stickers will be compared with those of other child participants. Therefore, a possi-

bility exists that social loafing occurred as a whole. Previous studies have reported that 5-year-old children behave

altruistically and distribute more of their stickers to others when observers are watching their behaviour compared

to when nobody is watching (Engelmann, Herrmann, & Tomasello, 2012, 2016; Leimgruber, Shaw, Santos, &

Olson, 2012). Children may have more awareness of evaluation concerns when observers evaluate their individual

performance.

For Experiments 1 and 2, a correlation was observed between the number of stickers placed by the child partici-

pants and those placed by adult/peer partners. This finding indicates that the number of stickers placed by the child

participants is dependent on the behaviour of their partner for both experiments. The notion that the participants

were more influenced by what was actually happening in front of them than by verbally provided information before

the task is possible. Children did not show significant social loafing when the partner was a highly productive adult.

Thus, children may have coordinated their actions during jointly working on the task. The current results may suggest

that social influence in terms of the children's performance is dependent on their partners' actions.

Social influence has been examined from a wide range of contexts; however, a partner's actions may have strong

effects on a child's behaviour. Butler and Walton (2013) found that children persisted longer in a task they believed

to be cooperative than individualistic. The authors suggested that an early emerging drive to engage in collaborative

activities leads to children's motivation to work with others. However, the current results indicated that the children

adjusted their behaviour to the actual partner's actions, which suggested that monitoring a partner's actions may

strongly influence children's engagement in joint tasks. Warneken, Gräfenhain, and Tomasello (2012) proposed that

communicating the intent to cooperate and sharing goals between partners can lead individuals to coordinate their

efforts. Thus, children may perceive a partner's intent to achieve the goal by monitoring the partner's actions and

coordinating their performance. Social influence in joint tasks that enable children to monitor a partner's actions may

be strongly influenced by the actual partner's performance.

4.1 | Limitation

In our paradigm, the children were able to observe their partner's actions during the task. The presence of a partner

may have been a distraction that slowed the participants' actions. Thus, future studies should use a collaborative task

in which children and their partner work towards a joint goal but are unaware of each other's contribution to the

HAMAMOTO ET AL. 11 of 14

task. Alternatively, a control condition should be modified, such that the child and partner each engage in an individ-

ual task simultaneously, and the partner's productivity level is the same as that in the collaborative task.

The current study revealed a positive correlation between the children's and partner's performance. Thus, high-

productivity partners may induce social facilitation. In the current study, high-productivity adult partners placed

approximately 20 stickers during the joint task, which has not been evaluated as extremely highly productive. In

future studies, a wider range of partner's productivity levels should be considered for examining social loafing and

social facilitation.

5 | CONCLUSION

The child participants demonstrated social loafing except when the partner was a highly productive adult. Correlation

analyses indicated that the number of stickers placed by the child participants tended to reflect their partners' per-

formance. Thus, young children may spontaneously monitor the behaviour of others and coordinate their behaviour

accordingly when performing collaborative tasks with others.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

We appreciate the cooperation of all families that agreed to participate in this study. We thank Hiroki Yamamoto

and Hika Kuroshima for their help with this study. We also thank the anonymous reviewers and colleagues who have

provided us useful feedback or helped to conduct experiments. This work was funded by a grant to Shoji Itakura

from the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (Grant No. 16H06301).

CONFLICT OF INTEREST

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

AUTHOR CONTRIBUTIONS

Hikaru Hamamoto and Mitsuhiko Ishikawa developed the study concept and analysed the data. Hikaru Hamamoto

and Risa Mizobata conducted the experiments, which were supervised by Shoji Itakura. Hikaru Hamamoto wrote the

first draft of this study. Mitsuhiko Ishikawa finalized the manuscript. All authors approved the experiment design and

discussed the results.

DATA AVAILABILITY STATEMENT

The data sets generated and analysed during the current study are available from the corresponding author upon

reasonable request.

ORCID

Mitsuhiko Ishikawa https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5141-6511

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How to cite this article: Hamamoto H, Mizobata R, Ishikawa M, Itakura S. Examining the social influence of

reputation for partner productivity level on the collaborative task performance of young children. Inf Child

Dev. 2021;30:e2213. https://doi.org/10.1002/icd.2213

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