Evasive dot movements threaten basic needs and evoke feelings of exclusion in an online game

People are highly sensitive to subtle social cues of possible exclusion. They also have a strong tendency to anthropomorphize even very basic shapes and figures. We used a minimalistic game to test whether the mere movement patterns of shapes would evoke the same response as social exclusion: threats to basic fundamental needs (belonging, control, meaningful existence, self-esteem). In four experiments (N = 1,046), participants played an online game in which they were represented by a dot, and they explored the virtual environment populated with other dots that interacted with participants differently, depending on condition. Across the studies, when the dots retreated away whenever the participant approached them (evasive condition), participants reported lower basic needs relative to comparison conditions where the dots did not behave evasively. These effects were amplified when game instructions explicitly directed participants to immersively imagine themselves in a social environment (Experiment 1). However, there were still robust effects on basic needs even with deliberately minimal and nonsocial instructions (Experiments 2-4). Another variant of the game, where the dots swarmed the participant, did not significantly affect basic needs. Results were not reliably moderated by individual differences. Attesting to the sensitivity to cues of social exclusion, people were affected by the evasive movements of nonhuman shapes in a virtual space. Together this research shows that the behaviour of minimal figures can also affect how we feel about ourselves. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).