“Back off, get your own coffee!” The amount of facilitation during object passing is modulated by object ownership status.

Humans often sacrifice some of their own sensorimotor comfort, control, and efficiency to promote the comfort, control and efficiency of a co-actor. This study demonstrates that the relationship between the ownership status of an object being passed and the individual’s engaged in the task plays a role in these processes. Across two experiments, participants exhibited facilitatory behavior by orienting the handle of a mug towards their co-actor when they passed the mug across a table. The ownership status of the mug, however, influenced the degree of facilitatory behavior. The handle of the mug was oriented towards the co-actor more when the selfother distinction was large (experimenter’s mug vs. participant’s own mug) compared to small (friend’s mug vs. participant’s
own mug). Thus, individuals promote the efficient movement of
a co-actor, but to a lesser degree when the co-actor will interact
with the individual’s own object than anyone else’s object.