Original Manuscript Self-Referential Processing Predicts Social Cognitive Ability Stejara Dinulescu 1 , Talha Alvi 1 , David Rosenfield 1 , Cecile S. Sunahara 1 , Junghee Lee 2 , and Benjamin A. Tabak 1 Abstract Self-referential processing is critical for making sense of others. However, there remains surprisingly little research examining associations between behavioral assessments of self-referential processing and social cognition (i.e., tasks assessing one’s understanding of others’ thoughts and emotions). This study (n ¼ 396) examined this link by associating accuracy in a self- referential processing task with two assessments of social cognition (i.e., theory of mind and empathic accuracy). Exploratory analyses included an examination of the relationship between self-referential processing and autism-related traits, as well as depression symptoms, both of which have been previously associated with decreased social cognitive ability. Self-referential processing was positively related to performance in both social cognition tasks, and these relationships were not valence- specific or moderated by gender. Moreover, no associations were found between self-referential processing and autism- related traits or depressive symptoms. Our findings provide behavioral evidence for a relation between self-referential pro- cessing and social cognition. Keywords social cognition, self-referential processing, theory of mind, empathic accuracy Social cognition has been defined as “the ability to construct representations of the relations between oneself and others, and to use those representations flexibly to guide social behavior” (Adolphs, 2001, p. 231). Researchers have long emphasized the critical role of the self in social cognition, with some theorizing that we can only understand the thoughts and emotions of oth- ers by relying on information about our own mental state (for a review, see Preston & de Waal, 2002). Thus, reflecting on the self and making inferences about the mental states of others are fundamentally intertwined. The process through which we use knowledge of the self to interpret and understand new information is commonly referred to as “self-referential processing” (SRP; Rogers et al., 1977). SRP is often examined in the context of a memory task. In healthy populations, performance on this task reliably yields a self-referential effect: Words encoded in relation to the self (e.g., if the word “caring” does or does not apply to you) are remembered more accurately than words encoded based on their physical properties (e.g., the use of capitalization, such as in “caring” vs. “CARING”; Klein & Kihlstrom, 1986). In addition, words encoded in their application to others (e.g., whether “caring” refers to a famous character like Harry Potter) are remembered less than words encoded in the “self” condi- tion and more than words encoded in the “physical” condition (Symons & Johnson, 1997). This type of paradigm focuses on SRP in the context of cognitive experience (i.e., the reflection upon and awareness of stimuli as self-referential; Northoff et al., 2006). Relatedly, the self-referential effect has also been shown when engaging in the subjective experience of “mineness” (i.e., the belief that something belongs to you rather than another person; Northoff et al., 2006). For example, objects encoded as belonging to oneself (e.g., “my purse”) are remembered more than objects encoded as belonging to another person (e.g., “your purse”; Cunningham et al., 2008). Thus, one can engage in SRP nonconsciously (i.e., implicit self-processing defined as associations about the self that occur without conscious awareness; Rameson et al., 2010) or con- sciously (i.e., self-reflection defined as an awareness of stimuli as self-referential; van der Meer et al., 2010). Although the importance of the self in social cognition has been established for decades, there is surprisingly little beha- vioral research that directly examines the associations between SRP and measures of social cognitive abilities such as theory of mind (ToM) and empathic accuracy (EA). ToM refers to our 1 Southern Methodist University, Dallas, TX, USA 2 Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior, UCLA, CA, USA Corresponding Author: Benjamin A. Tabak, Department of Psychology, Southern Methodist University, 6116 N. Central Expressway, Dallas, TX 75206, USA. Email: btabak@smu.edu Social Psychological and Personality Science 1-9 ª The Author(s) 2020 Article reuse guidelines: sagepub.com/journals-permissions DOI: 10.1177/1948550620902281 journals.sagepub.com/home/spp