Invisible Man

Exclusion From Shared Attention Affects Gaze Behavior and Self-Reports

authored by

Anne Böckler, Paul Hömke, Natalie Sebanz

Abstract

Social exclusion results in lowered satisfaction of basic needs and shapes behavior in subsequent social situations. We investigated participants' immediate behavioral response during exclusion from an interaction that consisted of establishing eye contact. A newly developed eye-tracker-based "looking game" was employed; participants exchanged looks with two virtual partners in an exchange where the player who had just been looked at chose whom to look at next. While some participants received as many looks as the virtual players (included), others were ignored after two initial looks (excluded). Excluded participants reported lower basic need satisfaction, lower evaluation of the interaction, and devaluated their interaction partners more than included participants, demonstrating that people are sensitive to epistemic ostracism. In line with William's need-threat model, eye-tracking results revealed that excluded participants did not withdraw from the unfavorable interaction, but increased the number of looks to the player who could potentially reintegrate them.

External Organisation(s)

Radboud University Nijmegen (RU)
Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Science (MPI CBS)
Central European University
Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics

Type

Article

Journal

Social Psychological and Personality Science

Volume

5

Pages

140-148

No. of pages

9

ISSN

1948-5506

Publication date

01.03.2014

Publication status

Published

Peer reviewed

Yes

ASJC Scopus subject areas

Social Psychology, Clinical Psychology

Sustainable Development Goals

SDG 10 - Reduced Inequalities

Electronic version(s)

https://doi.org/10.1177/1948550613488951 (Access: Closed)
http://hdl.handle.net/11858/00-001M-0000-0013-7579-5 (Access: Open)