One instance of a phenomenon examined in the present experiments is familiar to almost anyone who has conducted joint research. Consider the following: You have worked on a research project with another person, and the question arises as to who should be “first author” (i.e., who contributed more to the final product?). Often, it seems that both of you feel entirely justified in claiming that honor. Moreover, since you are convinced that your view of reality must be shared by your colleague (there being only one reality), you assume that the other person is attempting to take advantage of you. Sometimes such concerns are settled or prevented by the use of arbitrary decision rules, for example, the rule of “alphabetical priority” – a favorite gambit of those whose surnames begin with letters in the first part of the alphabet.

We suggest, then, that individuals tend to accept more responsibility for a joint product than other contributors attribute to them. It is further proposed that this is a pervasive phenomenon when responsibility for a joint venture is allocated by the participants. In many common endeavors, however, the participants are unaware of their divergent views, since there is no need to assign “authorship”; consequently, the ubiquity of the phenomenon is not readily apparent. The purpose of the current research was to assess whether these egocentric perceptions do occur in a variety of settings and to examine associated psychological processes.