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As robots become prevalent, merely thinking of their existence may affect how people behave. When interacting with a robot, people conformed to the robot’s answers more than to their own initial response [1]. In this study, we examined how robot affect conformity to other humans. We primed participants to think of different experiences: Humans (an experience with a human stranger), Robots (an experience with a robot), or Neutral (daily life). We then measured if participants conformed to other humans in survey answers. Results indicated that people conformed more when thinking of Humans or Robots than of Neutral events. This implies that robots have a similar effect on human conformity to other humans as human strangers do.
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Vulnerable robots positively shape human conversational dynamics in a human–robot team
Social robots are becoming increasingly influential in shaping the behavior of humans with whom they interact. Here, we examine how the actions of a social robot can influence human-to-human communication, and not just robot–human communication, using groups of three humans and one robot playing 30 rounds of a collaborative game ( n = 51 groups). We find that people in groups with a robot making vulnerable statements converse substantially more with each other, distribute their conversation somewhat more equally, and perceive their groups more positively compared to control groups with a robot that either makes neutral statements or no statements at the end of each round. Shifts in robot speech have the power not only to affect how people interact with robots, but also how people interact with each other, offering the prospect for modifying social interactions via the introduction of artificial agents into hybrid systems of humans and machines.
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- Award ID(s):
- 1813651
- PAR ID:
- 10170647
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
- Volume:
- 117
- Issue:
- 12
- ISSN:
- 0027-8424
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- 6370 to 6375
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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- Free Publicly Accessible Full Text
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Accepted Manuscript1.0
- Journal Article:
- https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1910402117
