Social exclusion in a virtual Cyberball game reduces the virtual hand illusion.
Psychonomic bulletin & review October 1, 2024 Yingbing Sun, Ruiyu Zhu, Bernhard Hommel et al. 3 citations
Social exclusion reduces people's sense of agency and ownership over a virtual hand. In a virtual hand illusion experiment, participants who were excluded during a Cyberball game reported weaker feelings of ownership and agency and showed reduced physiological and behavioral measures of these experiences compared to included participants. Synchrony between the virtual hand and the participant's own hand strengthened both ownership and agency across all measures, but this effect was weaker for excluded individuals. The findings indicate that social context shapes fundamental aspects of self-perception.