Title:	YOU JUST REMINDED ME - I'M HUMAN!: VIEWING OR INTERACTING WITH ROBOTS INCREASES HUMAN CONFORMITY TO OTHER HUMANS
Author(s):	Julian Welsh, Marlena Fraune, and Yanfen You
ISBN:	978-989-8704-19-1
Editors:	Piet Kommers and Guo Chao Peng
Year:	2020
Edition:	Single
Keywords:	Human-Robot Interaction, Group Effects, Conformity, Anthropomorphism
Type:	Full
First Page:	34
Last Page:	40
Language:	English
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Paper Abstract:	As robots become prevalent, merely thinking of their existence may affect how people behave. When interacting with a robot in a game with no objective answers, people conformed to the robot's answers more than to their own initial response (Scassellati ,2018). In this paper, we examined how robots affect conformity to other humans in two studies. In Study 1, an online survey, we primed participants (N = 113) to think of different experiences: Humans (an experience with a human stranger), Robots (an experience with a robot), or Neutral (daily life). We 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. In Study 2, in the real world, participants (N = 21), interacted with and Agent (human, robot) at a bake sale. Preliminary results indicated that in >90% of cases, groups of participants, rather than individuals, approached the robot while no such effect was observed when the human was at the bake sale. The bake sale was donation-based, and donations depended on whether the Agent was human or robot. In the human condition, participants donated an average of 1.00 dollar to the common cause and 3.00 dollars to the less common cause. Conversely, in the robot condition, participants donated an average of 2.00 dollars to both the more common cause, and an average of 1.00 dollar in the less common cause. The first study indicated that humans and robots have a similar effect on conformity in humans; however the second study suggests that the effects are more complex. Because participants in Study 1 typically imagined machinelike robots, but in Study 2 saw a humanlike robot, we recommend that future studies examine how group effects and anthropomorphism can influence conformity in people when interacting with robots in real-world settings.
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