Egocentric anchoring-and-adjustment underlies social inferences about known others varying in similarity and familiarity.

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.

Perspective taking reduces intergroup bias in visual representations of faces.

Intergroup biases shape most aspects of person construal, including lower-level visual representations of group members' faces. Specifically, ingroup members' faces tend to be represented more positively than outgroup members' faces. Here, we used a reverse-correlation paradigm to test whether engaging in perspective taking (i.

The goal-dependence of level-1 and level-2 visual perspective calculation.

Does tracking another agent's visual perspective depend on having a goal-albeit a remote one-to do so? In 5 experiments using indirect measures of visual perspective taking with a cartoon avatar, we examined whether and how adult perceivers' processing goals shape the incidental tracking of what objects the avatar sees (Level-1 perspective taking) and how the avatar sees those objects (Level-2 perspective taking). Process dissociation analyses, which aim to isolate calculation of the avatar's perspective as the process of focal interest, revealed that both Level-1 and Level-2 perspective calculation were consistently weaker when the avatar's perspective was less relevant for participants' own processing goals. This pattern of goal-dependent perspective tracking was also evident in behavioral analyses of interference from the avatar's differing perspective when reporting one's own perspective (i.

Category salience and racial bias in weapon identification: A diffusion modeling approach.

Stereotypes linking Black Americans with guns can have life-altering outcomes, making it important to identify factors that shape such weapon identification biases and how they do so. We report 6 experiments that provide a mechanistic account of how category salience affects weapon identification bias elicited by male faces varying in race (Black, White) and age (men, boys). Behavioral analyses of error rates and response latencies revealed that, when race was salient, faces of Black versus White males (regardless of age) facilitated the classification of objects as guns versus tools.

Time pressure disrupts level-2, but not level-1, visual perspective calculation: A process-dissociation analysis.

Reasoning about other people's mental states has long been assumed to require active deliberation. Yet, evidence from indirect measures suggests that adults and children commonly display behavior indicative of having incidentally calculated both what other agents see (level-1 perspective taking) and how they see it (level-2 perspective taking). Here, we investigated the efficiency of such perspective calculation in adults.

Are Black Women and Girls Associated With Danger? Implicit Racial Bias at the Intersection of Target Age and Gender.

We investigated whether stereotypes linking Black men and Black boys with violence and criminality generalize to Black women and Black girls. In Experiments 1 and 2, non-Black participants completed sequential-priming tasks wherein they saw faces varying in race, age, and gender before categorizing danger-related objects or words. Experiment 3 compared task performance across non-Black and Black participants.

Intergroup visual perspective-taking: Shared group membership impairs self-perspective inhibition but may facilitate perspective calculation.

Reasoning about what other people see, know, and want is essential for navigating social life. Yet, even neurodevelopmentally healthy adults make perspective-taking errors. Here, we examined how the group membership of perspective-taking targets (ingroup vs.

Active perspective taking induces flexible use of self-knowledge during social inference.

Social life hinges on the ability to infer others' mental states. By default, people often recruit self-knowledge during social inference, particularly for others who are similar to oneself. How do people's perspective-taking efforts-deliberately imagining another's perspective-affect self-knowledge use? In 2 experiments, we test the hypothesis: that the application of self-knowledge to a perspective-taking target differs based on that person's similarity to oneself.

Dissociating processes underlying level-1 visual perspective taking in adults.

Although reasoning about other people's mental states has typically been thought to require effortful deliberation, evidence from indirect measures suggests that people may implicitly track others' perspectives, spontaneously calculating what they see and know. We used a process-dissociation approach to investigate the unique contributions of automatic and controlled processes to level-1 visual perspective taking in adults. In Experiment 1, imposing time pressure reduced the ability to exert control over one's responses, but it left automatic processing of a target's perspective unchanged.

Anxiety impairs spontaneous perspective calculation: Evidence from a level-1 visual perspective-taking task.

Reasoning about other people's mental states is central to social life. Yet, even neuro-typical adults sometimes have perspective-taking difficulties, particularly when another's perspective conflicts with their own. In two experiments, we examined the cognitive mechanisms underlying an affective factor known to hinder perspective taking in adults: anxiety.