A UK study has found that people who are more socially mindful show a weaker egocentric bias when making quick decisions, with the effect observable in how fast and how accurately they identify objects linked to themselves versus a friend. The research, published in Consciousness and Cognition, points to the nuanced ways consideration for others can shape everyday decision-making.
Self-bias, or self-prioritisation, is the tendency for information tied to the self to be processed more rapidly and accurately than similar information related to others. This bias can extend to objects we own, even if they are only trivially linked to us, suggesting that simply associating an item with the self can influence our choices and speed.
The researchers argue that self-prioritisation is not a fixed feature of cognition but a flexible bias that depends on context and individual traits. A proposed mechanism is an egocentric default-to-self bias, where people initially assume an object belongs to them, accelerating decisions about self-related items by reducing the evidence required to respond.
Social mindfulness—the propensity to consider others’ needs, wishes and freedom of choice when making decisions—may counteract this tendency. Individuals who score higher on social mindfulness are often more cooperative, generous and trusting, which could lessen the cognitive edge typically granted to self-related information.
Marius Golubickis of United Arab Emirates University and colleagues set out to test whether greater social mindfulness correlates with reduced self-bias. They predicted that more socially mindful individuals would show smaller differences in response speed and accuracy between their own objects and a friend’s, and that this would be explained by a weaker default-to-self.
The experiment involved 100 adults tested at the University of Aberdeen in Scotland, with participants paid £10 each. Sixty-four were women, and the average age was 28; nine participants were excluded for not following instructions, leaving 91 for analysis.
Participants completed two tasks: an object classification task to measure self-bias, and an object-selection task to measure social mindfulness. In the classification task, objects were categorised as belonging to the participant or a named best friend; the categories were pens and pencils, with assignment varied across participants.
After learning which objects belonged to whom, participants viewed a brief image of a pen or a pencil and were asked to identify the owner as quickly and accurately as possible. They completed 10 practice trials followed by two blocks of 100 trials.
In the object-selection task, sets of three or four objects were shown, with one item unique and the others identical. The task was framed as a game with a partner—a stranger they would never meet—and the participant always chose first. Choosing the identical item preserved the partner’s ability to choose, while taking the unique item removed that option.
As expected, participants responded faster to their own objects (average 542 milliseconds) than to their friend’s (average 557 milliseconds), and were slightly more accurate with their own items (94% vs 92%). This confirmed the presence of self-prioritisation, though the effect was smaller among those higher in social mindfulness. In some cases, participants even responded faster to their friend’s objects. Social mindfulness accounted for about 5% of the speed difference and 11% of the accuracy difference.
To understand why these patterns occurred, the researchers used a computational model of decision-making that separates perceptual processing from pre-existing decision bias. The model showed that participants tended to begin each decision already leaning toward the self-owned option. This initial lean was weaker among people higher in social mindfulness, interpreted as reduced egocentrism. The self-related processing advantage remained, but it was not connected to social mindfulness.
“Collectively, these findings further underscore the malleability of self-prioritization and provide a computational account of how social mindfulness impacts decision-making,” the study authors concluded.
The study clarifies how individual differences shape decision-making, though it is limited to two types of trivial objects and to UK participants, leaving open questions about whether results hold for more valuable possessions or other cultural contexts. It is also correlational and does not establish causation, and the researchers note that social mindfulness was measured with a single behavioural task.
The paper, Social mindfulness is associated with reduced self-bias: A computational approach, lists Marius Golubickis, Siobhan Caughey, Esther S. Selvaraj, Parnian Jalalian, Yadvi Sharma, Jessica Highfield, Rinki Kanakraj, and C. Neil Macrae as authors.
