Towards Understanding Sense of Inclusion in Social VR Onboarding.

Being included in social interactions is a fundamental human need in both physical and virtual worlds. However, it is overlooked in the context of social VR user experience. Based on social psychology, we define the sense of inclusion as the degree to which an individual perceives a sense of belonging and authenticity from a group. We initially use non-verbal behavior, which is commonly used in social VR, as an entry point to understanding the role of the sense of inclusion in social VR. We examine how the reactive behaviors of existing community members would influence the sense of inclusion during social VR onboarding. Our between-subject experiment (N=39) with three reactive behavioral conditions confirms that positive responses from existing community members increased the sense of inclusion. And the sense of inclusion positively mediates several user experiences including enjoyment and immersion. We highlight potential design implications and future research for social VR.