No effect of online cyberball social exclusion on interval estimation of action-outcome events

Recent work suggests that feelings of social exclusion can attenuate feelings of agency, as indexed by temporal binding. However, existing evidence relies on heterogeneous manipulations of social exclusion and different operationalizations of temporal binding, raising questions about the generality of these effects. Across two pre-registered experiments, we examined whether the first-hand experience of social exclusion influences temporal binding as measured by the interval estimation task. Social exclusion and inclusion were manipulated using a within-subjects Cyberball paradigm administered online. Despite clear evidence that the Cyberball manipulation altered participants' explicit perceptions of control, neither experiment provided convincing evidence that social exclusion influenced interval estimates. A high powered follow-up study yielded null results supported by Bayesian analyses and revealed order-related drift in interval estimates across blocks. Together, these findings suggest that interval estimation-based temporal binding may be less sensitive to social exclusion than previously assumed, and they highlight important boundary conditions for investigating the impact of social exclusion on temporal binding.