Abstract: Reputation management, the strategic behavior aimed at controlling others' evaluations to cultivate a desired personal reputation, represents a sophisticated dimension of children's social development. Although early prosocial actions are typically driven by intrinsic motives such as empathy or norm compliance, recent evidence demonstrates that children gradually acquire the ability to act prosocially in order to cultivate a positive reputation. This review systematically examines the expression and development of reputation management across diverse prosocial behaviors, drawing a key distinction between actions that seek a positive reputation as an end in itself and those that use it as a strategic tool. By integrating the cognitive, motivational, and neurophysiological foundations of these processes, we propose a novel integrative model of the underlying mechanisms.
Moving beyond a generalized view of prosociality, this review introduces a typological framework for understanding reputation management based on the functional role of reputation. We categorize children's strategic prosocial behaviors into two types: prosocial behavior with reputation as a goal, where the primary aim is to acquire or maintain a positive reputation for its own sake and the delayed social rewards it brings; and prosocial behavior with reputation as a strategy, where a positive reputation is instrumentally used as a means to facilitate immediate or future cooperation and reciprocity. This distinction is illustrated through a detailed analysis of behaviors such as sharing and helping (with reputation as the goal) and cooperation (with reputation as a tool).
A central contribution of this review is its integrative analysis of psychological mechanisms, culminating in a comprehensive cognitive-motivational-neural model of reputation management. This model explains how the capacity for reputation management develops. At the cognitive level, four core abilities form the foundation: theory of mind, for inferring others’ values and beliefs; norm understanding, for identifying which behaviors are socially valued and reputation-enhancing; delay of gratification, for sacrificing immediate gains to protect long-term reputational interests; and underlying all of these, working memory—especially social working memory—which provides the computational platform for processing complex social information. Cognitive capacity alone is insufficient without social motivation. From a motivational perspective, the review outlines a developmental framework. Indirect reciprocity provides children with the foundational understanding that a positive reputation can yield future benefits from third-party observers. The desire for social affiliation, which evolves from a simple preference for playmates in early childhood to a complex need for peer acceptance and recognition in middle childhood, heightens children’s concern for how they are evaluated by others. In addition, positive reputation itself serves as a powerful social reward, motivating children to achieve and maintain this desirable state.
A further theoretical advance is the integration of neurophysiological findings into the model. Building on adult fMRI studies, this review identifies the medial prefrontal cortex (which supports meta-representations of one's social standing) and the striatum (which processes the value of social rewards and punishments) as the core neural substrates of reputation management. Other brain regions involved in social perception, reward processing, and cognitive control are also likely engaged. This model illustrates how these three layers—motivation, cognition, and neural function—interact dynamically. Social motives drive the engagement of cognitive resources, which are implemented by specific neural circuits, to produce strategic reputational behavior. Feedback from social interactions, in turn, refines cognitive schemas and modulates future motivations.
Finally, this review outlines key directions for future research, including: investigating the early emergence of reputation management; studying its role in diverse prosocial behaviors (e.g., prosocial lying, prosocial risk-taking); extending work to more ecologically valid, group, and cross-cultural contexts; elucidating its neurobiological foundations in children; and applying these insights in family and educational settings.
In summary, this review offers a comprehensive, multi-level theoretical model of children’s reputation management within prosocial behavior. By differentiating behavioral forms, identifying core mechanisms, and integrating cognitive, motivational, and neural perspectives, it advances the conceptualization of strategic prosociality and sets a clear agenda for future research.

Key words: prosocial behavior, children, reputation management, cognitive-motivational-neural mechanisms