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Scholars and laypeople alike have been captivated by ChatGPT's human-like abilities. In the present research, we investigate how people perceive ChatGPT, and in particular, how they assign human-like attributes such as gender to the chatbot. Across five pre-registered studies (N = 1,552), we find that people are more likely to perceive ChatGPT to be male than female (1) in the absence of any information provided by researchers, (2) following demonstrations of ChatGPT’s abilities (providing information, summarizing text, etc.), and (3) across different methods of eliciting perceived gender (various scales and asking for a name of ChatGPT). Moreover, we find that this seemingly default perception of ChatGPT as male can reverse when ChatGPT’s other abilities are highlighted (e.g., acting as a therapist for a user). Our research has implications for perceptions of new technology, a potential male bias for ambiguous stimuli, and social cognitive processes of gender identification.

Consumers actively look to and expect businesses to engage in charitable donation activities. While past research has demonstrated the strategic benefits that corporate social responsibility (CSR) affords to firms, little is known about the way consumers apply subjective (or objective) ethical standards for corporate donations. Our research focuses on the way expectation standards of CSR are applied to luxury (versus non-luxury) companies. Do consumers hold a belief that luxury firms are expected to donate more? Four experimental studies find robust and converging evidence that consumers do not hold luxury firms to a higher standard; instead, they take on the normative belief that companies are obligated to donate equal amounts. This reference-independence holds stable across different product categories (Studies 1a and 1b), perspectives (Study 2), and attempts to alter the belief (Study 3). However, individual differences do exist among consumers regarding the level of donation expected, particularly for materialists and spendthrifts. Specifically, moderation analyses reveal that materialists and spendthrifts (compared to non-materialists and tightwads) expect higher levels of corporate donations regardless of the type of firm (i.e., luxury vs. non-luxury). This research extends the discussion of subjective ethical beliefs in the context of luxury CSR.