Egocentric Anchoring-and-Adjustment Underlies Social Inferences About Known Others Varying in Similarity and Familiarity

• Published in: Journal of experimental psychology. General 2023-04, Vol.152 (4), p.1011-1029
• Main Authors: Wang, Y. Andre, Simpson, Austin J., Todd, Andrew R.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Adjustment; Egocentrism; Familiarity; Female; Human; Humans; Inference; Interpersonal Relations; Male; Memory; Mind; Personal relationships; Reaction Time; Recognition, Psychology; Social Behavior; Social Cognition; Social interaction; Theory of Mind
• ISSN: 0096-3445; 1939-2222
• DOI: 10.1037/xge0001313

How do people infer the content of another person's mind? One documented strategy-at least when inferring the minds of strangers-entails anchoring on the content of one's own mind and serially adjusting away from this egocentric anchor. Yet, many social inferences concern known others in existing social relationships. In eight experiments with four sets of stimuli, we tested whether an egocentric anchoring-and-adjustment mechanism underlies social inferences about known targets, and whether it varies based on the target's similarity and familiarity to oneself. In Experiments 1-7, participants (Ntotal = 4,790) rated themselves and a known target on various characteristics (e.g., preferences, habits, traits), and response times for the target ratings were recorded. An integrative data analysis revealed that, consistent with egocentric anchoring-and-adjustment, the more discrepant the target ratings were from participants' self ratings, the longer participants took to provide target ratings. Importantly, this pattern of anchoring-and-adjustment was stronger for similar (vs. dissimilar) and familiar (vs. unfamiliar) targets, but it emerged in all experimental conditions. Experiment 8 (N = 549) suggested that these results were unlikely to be explained solely by a memory search process. We discuss implications for anchoring-and-adjustment as a mechanism underlying social inferences.