SRIG 24-13: Theory of Mind Personality Project

What was the issue being addressed?

We originally aimed to figure out what personality traits relate to perspective taking. We presumed more agreeable individuals would display heightened perspective-taking abilities but found no evidence of this. Instead, we found evidence that more honest, humble individuals perform better on perspective-taking tasks. We have just run another study using this grant, aiming to further support these findings.            

Provide a brief, lay description of the work undertaken/initiative.

We previously ran two studies and in both found that more honest, humble individuals scored better on a perspective-taking task, suggesting a link between an honest, humble personality and perspective-taking abilities. We used this grant to run another follow up study, aiming to replicate these results using more robust questionnaires. In this new study we observed a similar but smaller effect compared to the previous two studies. This new study supports our previous findings but suggests the link between an honest, humble personality and perspective taking may be weaker than we previously thought.

What is the expected impact this project will have on the community?

Individuals with certain disorders, particularly autism, have difficulty taking others’ perspectives. Understanding links between personality and perspective taking can therefore help us develop treatments for these individuals. For instance, if we know honest, humble individuals have heightened perspective-taking abilities, working on these traits may help bolster perspective-taking abilities.