Überball

Background

Cyberball is a popular pseudo-multiple player virtual ball-tossing game created by Kipling Williams and colleagues in the early 2000s to study social exclusion ('ostracism') and (over-)inclusion.

Uberball is a variant of Cyberball, played with 4 players, that focuses specifically on the overinclusion of the participant in the virual ball tossing game. The Uberball overinclusion starts happening after a couple of ball tosses when two of the computer players start throwing the ball mostly to the participant, resulting in the participant receiving the ball the majority of the times.

Task Procedure

After the participant is given background information on the overt -yet deceptive- study goals (e.g. study 'mental visualization skills') they are made to think that they are matched with a group of other participants for a virtual ball tossing game in which they should all try to mentally visualize and experience the game as if it was real. After entering their name, the participant sees four computer avatars on the screen that are tossing a ball. Once the participant receives the ball, they can decide via mouse click to toss the ball to any of the other avatars. After a couple of tosses, two of the players will start throwing the ball almost always to the participant.

What it Measures

Uberball is a tool to induce feelings of social inclusion in a controlled environment. Additional measures are usually needed to assess the impact of this inclusion experience, e.g. self-report measures or brain imaging (fMRI) to map neural responses to social well-being.

Psychological domains

• Belonging: Feeling group membership
• Self-Esteem: Feelings of worthiness and being liked

Main Performance Metrics

• Number of Throws: The computer tracks the number of ball tosses of the participant to each player

Psychiatric Conditions

Social Inclusion has been shown to be especiallhy important the following group of people

• Social Anxiety