Effects of Prior Commitment on Children's Evaluation and Imitation of a Peer Model's Perceptual Judgments

Abstract

Second and third grade children (16 boys, 16 girls) were given the opportunity to evaluate and imitate a peer's answers on a simple perceptual task. Those in the commitment condition first performed the task themselves, while those in the no commitment condition did not. As predicted, (1) committed Ss evaluated the peer's responses less favorably and imitated less often than did uncommitted Ss, and (2) evaluation and imitation were positively related.