When people make inference about other’s mental state, they refer as an anchor to
privileged information which they know and other doesn’t know, thereafter they make
adjustment from the anchor to shared information which they know and other know.
When adjustment are insufficiently, they use more privileged information, and have
more egocentric biases. The purpose of the present study is to examine whether or not
considering an anchor could affect strength of egocentric biases. Participants read a
story about an e-mail sent from a person to another person and then the participants
were asked to infer mental state of recipient. In Experiment 1, participants were asked
to make a considering privileged information before making an inference. In Experi-
ment 2, cognitive load were operated, participants made an inference under a condition
prevented conscious cognitive process. These results showed that participants who con-
sidered privileged information had more egocentric biases. These results are discussed
cognitive processes controlling use of privileged information.
