Recent studies of self-referent cognition have demonstrated that people process information about themselves more efficiently than other kinds of information. To investigate latency effects in self-referent decision-making, 60 college students participated in a three phase study. In phase one, each subject chose the trait within a pair that best or least described self; in phase two, subjects selected traits which either were similar or dissimilar to self; in phase three, subjects selected traits which were self-descriptive or other-descriptive. Judgment latencies were automatically recorded. An analysis of the results showed that subjects rapidly selected which of two traits better or least described self. "Better" judgments were faster with increasing closeness to the self of selected traits, while "least" judgments were faster with increasing closeness to self of nonselected traits. In terms of judgment latencies, the closer two traits were to each other, the longer subjects took to make a choice between them. (Author/BL)