A human working memory advantage for social network information

Humans are innately social. We live in large, complex, and dynamic social
groups. In order to navigate these networks, we must rely on a set of
social-cognitive processes, including social working memory (WM). Here, we
designed a novel network memory task to study WM for social versus
non-social network information across 241 participants (18-65 years) in a
tightly controlled, preregistered study. We show that humans demonstrate a
WM advantage for social, relative to non-social, network information. We
also observed a self-relevant positivity bias, but an “other” negativity
bias. These findings are interpreted in the context of an evolutionary
need to belong to one’s social group, to identify risks to one’s social
safety, and to appropriately track one’s social status within a complex
network of social relationships.