Factors that amplify and attenuate egocentric mentalizing

An Illusory Consensus Effect: The Mere Repetition of Information Increases Estimates that Others Would Believe or Already Know It

“…For example, we initially speculated that repetition may be more likely to affect consensus estimates for similar others, for whom one's own knowledge is more diagnostic (e.g., Nelson et al, 1998;Todd & Tamir, 2024). In our studies, we did not find that the effects of repetition were moderated by our measures of identification with or perceived similarity to Americans, the target group of our judgments.…”

“…When making judgments about what others believe, individuals often draw on their own knowledge as a source of information (Nelson et al, 1998). The tendency to be biased by one's own knowledge when making estimates about what others know represents a form of egocentric mentalizing (Todd & Tamir, 2024) that has been called the "curse of knowledge" effect (Camerer et al, 1989). For example, people judge that more of their peers would know the answer to a trivia question when they themselves know the answer (Birch et al, 2017;Nickerson et al, 1987;Tullis, 2018).…”

“…In Experiment 2, we investigated the effect of mere repetition on participants' judgments of how many others knew true information. Given that individuals tend to rely more on their own knowledge when making estimates about more similar others for whom one's own knowledge is more likely to be a relevant cue (Nelson et al, 1998;Todd & Tamir, 2024), we additionally explored whether the effects of repetition were moderated by how closely participants identified with the target of the consensus measure (Americans). We also investigated whether these effects varied by individual differences in thinking styles (Need for Cognition and Cognitive Reflection) in both experiments, as well as by claim veracity in Experiment 1 (which used both true and false claims).…”

“…First, repetition increases processing fluency, which is then used as a heuristic cue to estimate consensus (e.g., Schwarz & Jalbert, 2020;. Second, repetition increases an individual's own belief in the information (i.e., an illusory truth effect), and people draw on their own knowledge to make estimates about what others know (Nelson et al, 1998;Todd & Tamir, 2024). Individuals' judgments are likely to be informed to some degree through both of these paths, and we view them to be highly interconnected.…”

Inductive Reasoning Renewed: A Reply to Commentators

“…(2017) used computational modeling to show how egocentric projection affects social learning and predictions about the behavior or others (see also Todd & Tamir, 2024).…”