  In this work, we propose a tool to reveal the origin of the collective-like
phenomena observed in proton--proton collisions. We exploit the fundamental
difference between the underlying mechanisms, color reconnection (CR) and
hydrodynamics, which produce radial flow patterns in \textsc{Pythia}~8 and
\textsc{Epos}~3, respectively. Specifically, we proceed by examining the
strength of the coupling between the soft and hard components which, by
construction, is larger in \textsc{Pythia}~8 than in \textsc{Epos}~3. We study
the transverse momentum ($p_{\rm T}$) distributions of charged pions, kaons and
(anti)protons in inelastic pp collisions at $\sqrt{s}=$ 7\,TeV produced at
mid-rapidity. Specific selections are made on an event-by-event basis as a
function of the charged particle multiplicity and the transverse momentum of
the leading jet ($p_{\rm T}^{\rm jet}$) reconstructed using the
\textsc{FastJet} algorithm at mid-pseudorapidity ($|\eta|<1$). From our
studies, quantitative and qualitative differences between \textsc{Pythia}~8 and
\textsc{Epos}~3 are found in the $p_{\rm T}$ spectra when (for a given
multiplicity class) the leading jet $p_{\rm T}$ is increased. In addition, we
show that for low-multiplicity events the presence of jets can produce radial
flow-like behavior. Motivated by our findings, we propose to perform a similar
analysis using experimental data from RHIC and LHC.
