Cyberball: A program for use in research on interpersonal ostracism and acceptance

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Abstract

Since the mid-1990s, research on interpersonal acceptance and exclusion has proliferated, and several paradigms have evolved that vary in their efficiency, context specificity, and strength. This article describes one such paradigm, Cyberball, which is an ostensibly online ball-tossing game that participants believe they are playing with two or three others. In fact, the "others" are controlled by the programmer. The course and speed of the game, the frequency of inclusion, player information, and iconic representation are all options the researcher can regulate. The game was designed to manipulate independent variables (e.g., ostracism) but can also be used as a dependent measure of prejudice and discrimination. The game works on both PC and Macintosh (OS X) platforms and is freely available.

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Most cited references 6

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Does rejection hurt? An FMRI study of social exclusion.

Naomi Eisenberger, Matthew Lieberman, Kipling D Williams (2003)

A neuroimaging study examined the neural correlates of social exclusion and tested the hypothesis that the brain bases of social pain are similar to those of physical pain. Participants were scanned while playing a virtual ball-tossing game in which they were ultimately excluded. Paralleling results from physical pain studies, the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) was more active during exclusion than during inclusion and correlated positively with self-reported distress. Right ventral prefrontal cortex (RVPFC) was active during exclusion and correlated negatively with self-reported distress. ACC changes mediated the RVPFC-distress correlation, suggesting that RVPFC regulates the distress of social exclusion by disrupting ACC activity.