Ownership status influences the degree of joint facilitatory behaviour.

TY - JOUR

T1 - Ownership status influences the degree of joint facilitatory behaviour.

AU - Constable, Merryn

AU - Bayliss, Andrew

AU - Tipper, Steven Paul

AU - Spaniol, A.P.

AU - Pratt, Jay

AU - Welsh, Tim

N1 - © The Author(s) 2016. This is an author-produced version of the published paper. Uploaded in accordance with the publisher’s self-archiving policy. Further copying may not be permitted; contact the publisher for details

PY - 2016/9/1

Y1 - 2016/9/1

N2 - When engaging in joint activities, humans tend to sacrifice some of their own sensorimotor comfort and efficiency to facilitate their co-actor’s performance. Here, we investigated if ownership - a socio-culturally based non-physical feature ascribed to objects - influences facilitatory motor behavior in joint action. Participants passed mugs that differed in ownership status across a table to a co-actor. Across two experiments, we found that participants oriented the handle less towards their partner when passing their own mug relative to a mug owned by their co-actor (Experiment 1) and a mug owned by the Experimenter (Experiment 2). These findings indicate that individuals plan and execute actions that assist collaborators, but less so if it is the individual’s own property that the partner intends to manipulate. We discuss these findings in terms of underlying variables associated with ownership and conclude that a ‘self-other distinction’ can be instated in the human sensorimotor system.

AB - When engaging in joint activities, humans tend to sacrifice some of their own sensorimotor comfort and efficiency to facilitate their co-actor’s performance. Here, we investigated if ownership - a socio-culturally based non-physical feature ascribed to objects - influences facilitatory motor behavior in joint action. Participants passed mugs that differed in ownership status across a table to a co-actor. Across two experiments, we found that participants oriented the handle less towards their partner when passing their own mug relative to a mug owned by their co-actor (Experiment 1) and a mug owned by the Experimenter (Experiment 2). These findings indicate that individuals plan and execute actions that assist collaborators, but less so if it is the individual’s own property that the partner intends to manipulate. We discuss these findings in terms of underlying variables associated with ownership and conclude that a ‘self-other distinction’ can be instated in the human sensorimotor system.

U2 - 10.1177/0956797616661544

DO - 10.1177/0956797616661544

M3 - Article

VL - 27

SP - 1371

EP - 1378

JO - Psychological Science

JF - Psychological Science

SN - 0956-7976

IS - 10

ER -