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Interhemispheric interaction and egocentrism: The role of handedness in social comparative judgement
Author(s) -
Rose Jason P.,
Jasper John D.,
Corser
Ryan
Publication year - 2012
Publication title -
british journal of social psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.855
H-Index - 98
eISSN - 2044-8309
pISSN - 0144-6665
DOI - 10.1111/j.2044-8309.2010.02007.x
Subject(s) - egocentrism , psychology , judgement , optimism , pessimism , social psychology , cognitive psychology , developmental psychology , philosophy , epistemology , political science , law
Previous research has shown that people are egocentrically biased when making judgements that require a self‐to‐peer comparison – leading to above‐/below‐average effects and comparative optimism/pessimism. Two experiments examined whether interhemispheric brain connectivity (assessed via strength of handedness) is associated with egocentrism in the comparative judgement process. In Experiment 1, strong handers (SH) and mixed handers (MH) made percentile rank judgements about their abilities in easy and hard domains. In Experiment 2, SH and MH judged their likelihoods of outperforming a co‐participant in easy and hard tasks. Both experiments showed that SH were more egocentric than MH and thus showed (a) more above‐ and below‐average effects when estimating their abilities (Experiment 1) and (b) generally larger optimism biases when predicting performances in a competition (Experiment 2). Taken together, these experiments provide evidence that underlying interhemispheric connectivity shapes egocentrism in comparative judgement.