Good Me Bad Me: Prioritization of the Good-Self During Perceptual Decision-Making

Chuan-Peng Hu,Jie Sui,C Neil Macrae,Yuxuan Lan

doi:10.1525/collabra.301

Abstract

People display systematic priorities to self-related stimuli. As the self is not a unified entity, however, it remains unclear which aspects of the self are crucial to producing this stimulus prioritization. To explore this issue, we manipulated the valence of the self-concept (good me vs. bad me) — a core identity-based facet of the self — using a standard shape-label association task in which participants initially learned the associations (e.g., circle/good-self, triangle/good-other, diamond/bad-self, square/bad-other), after which they completed shape-label matching and shape-categorization tasks, such that attention was directed to different aspects of the stimuli (i.e., self-relevance and valence). The results revealed that responses were more efficient to the good-self shape (vs. other shapes), regardless of the task that was undertaken. A hierarchical drift diffusion model (HDDM) analysis indicated that this good-self prioritization effect was underpinned by differences in the rate of information uptake. These findings demonstrate that activation of the good-self representation exclusively facilitates perceptual decision-making, thereby furthering understanding of the self-prioritization effect.

Highlights

To optimize social-cognitive functioning, people need to prioritize processing so that stimuli relevant to their goals are selected for action
Using a hierarchical drift diffusion model (HDDM), researchers have demonstrated that self-relevance influences both perceptual and decisional processes that underlie visual processing (Golubickis et al, 2019; Macrae et al, 2017)
The planned exploratory contrasts showed that there were faster responses to the good-self than bad-self association in the perceptual matching task, t(28) = –5.669, p < .001, Cohen’s dz = –1.053, 95% CI [–1.503 –0.591], BF10 = 4443, as well as faster responses to the good-other than bad-other association, t(28) = –3.164, p = .0037, Cohen’s dz = –0.587, 95% CI [–0.978 –0.188], BF10 = 10.6

Summary

Introduction

To optimize social-cognitive functioning, people need to prioritize processing so that stimuli relevant to their goals are selected for action. When people learned associations between neutral shapes (of equal familiarity) and personal labels (You, Friend, Stranger) representing themselves, a close other, or a stranger and responded whether the shapes and labels matched these associations, there was an immediate and highly robust advantage for the self-pair (e.g., square-you) compared to other pairs (e.g., circle-friend; see Sui, He, & Humphreys, 2012). This self-prioritization effect during perceptual matching is maintained throughout the life span (Sui & Humphreys, 2017). Using a hierarchical drift diffusion model (HDDM), researchers have demonstrated that self-relevance influences both perceptual and decisional processes that underlie visual processing (Golubickis et al, 2019; Macrae et al, 2017)

Methods

Results

Conclusion