You say it's not me: the influence of offering external explanations of rejection and acceptance behavior on the perception of benevolence in borderline personality disorder.

Background: Interpersonal impairments in patients diagnosed with borderline personality disorder (BPD) are characterized by the fear of being rejected and high levels of loneliness. Potential underlying factors are alterations in the processing of social interactions and the associated perceptions of social partners. In this regard, BPD patients tend to attribute the cause of negative rather than positive events to their own person and to perceive others as less trustworthy than healthy controls (HCs).

Exploring Virtual Doppelgangers as Movement Models to Enhance Voluntary Imitation.

Virtual Reality (VR) setups offer the possibility to investigate interactions between model and observer characteristics in imitation behavior, such as in the chameleon effect of automatic mimicry. We tested the hypothesis that perceived affiliative characteristics of a virtual model, such as similarity to the observer and likability, will facilitate observers' engagement in voluntary motor imitation. In a within-subjects design, participants were exposed to four virtual characters of different degrees of realism and observer similarity (avatar numbers AN=1-4), ranging from an abstract stickperson to a personalized doppelganger avatar designed from 3d scans of the observer.