The effect of social cognitive representation on the mental property of the body: Evidence based on rubber hand illusion

Mental representations are to be considered as the most advanced aspects of human cognition and in addition to their own physical representations, representations of social cognition of others can also affect the mental experience of each person's ownership of their body. Accordingly, the present research as a quasi-experimental study based on repeated measures, was conducted in order to investigate the effect of social cognitive representation on the mental property of the body. The population of the study consisted of all Students of Payame Noor University of Tehran from which 61 females and 47 males were selected by convenience sampling. The research instruments included Cohen and Botvinick's (1998) Rubber Hand Illusion Test, and Longo, et al.'s (2008) Rubber Hand Ownership Experience Mental Report Questionnaire. Induction of representations of social cognition was based on the three-dimensional mental model of social cognition by Tamir and Thornton (2020). The collected data were analyzed by repeated measures analysis of variance using SPSS-22 software. According to the findings, the error score of the rubber hand was higher than the rubber hand with the color close to the body and green, which was defined in terms of the factors of the levels of the three-dimensional model of social cognition at the extreme level, and lower than the blue rubber hand, which was at extremely low levels of the mental three-dimensional model. The results indicated that in social relations, the identification of individuals with those who have gained a higher social status in mental evaluations can be more than those who have gained a lower social status in mental representations.