• Journal of the HCI Society of Korea
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• v.14 no.2
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• pp.5-12
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• 2019

Social exclusion, which does not fulfill the desire for respect as one of the most basic human desires, makes those who perceive themselves to be socially excluded seek physical warmth. However, very few studies have examined whether this phenomenon-wherein social exclusion develops a preference for warmth-can be generalized to the emotional or symbolic aspects, such as the color of lighting. This study aimed to verify the effects of perceived social exclusion on warm lighting preferences, and two experiments were performed for this purpose. In Experiment-1, participants who were respected by people the previous day were assigned to the group that did not perceive social exclusion (non-perceived social exclusion group), and those who were not respected were assigned to the group that perceived social exclusion (perceived social exclusion group). Following this, their preference for warm lighting (3000K), neutral lighting (4000K), and cold lighting (6000K) was measured. The results showed that the perceived social exclusion group had a stronger preference for warm lighting and a weaker preference for cold lighting than did their counterparts. Moreover, the perceived social exclusion group showed a strong preference for warm lighting over neutral lighting; they also showed a weak preference for cold lighting. In Experiment-2, after assigning the participants into groups as in Experiment-1, the participants' preference for a space with warm lighting, neutral lighting, and cold lighting was measured. The results showed that the perceived social exclusion group had a stronger preference for the space with warm lighting and a weaker preference for cold lighting than did their counterparts. Further, the perceived social exclusion group showed a strong preference for the space with warm lighting over the space with neutral lighting; they also showed a weak preference for the space with cold lighting. The findings of this study have implications that can be applied to designing living spaces for people who experience social exclusion, such as handicapped individuals, multicultural families, or immigrant workers, as well as developing artificial intelligence services and cyber-friend characters for this demographic.