Research suggests that cognitive conflict is accompanied by a negative signal. Building on the demonstrated role of negative affect in attitude formation and change, the present research investigated whether the experience of cognitive conflict negatively influences subsequent evaluations of neutral stimuli. Relying on the emergence of conflict in the Stroop task, participants were presented with compatible (non-conflict) and incompatible (conflict) Stroop color words that were each followed by a neutral visual stimulus. In general, participants liked stimuli following incompatible Stroop words less than stimuli following compatible Stroop words. The results revealed similar compatibility effects in tasks in which participants actively responded to the Stroop words and in tasks in which they passively observed them. Furthermore, these effects emerged in offline and online measures of evaluation. Interestingly, the results also suggest that the compatibility effect on liking observed in the present research was to some degree driven by the positivity associated with the compatible Stroop words, and not just by the negativity associated with the incompatible Stroop words. We discuss the present findings in the context of how and when conflicting responses to events (such as in the Stroop task) can influence evaluations of stimuli associated with the conflicting events.

The present article puts forward a behavioral disinhibition hypothesis stating that, often, at least some levels of behavioral disinhibition are needed to overcome people’s inhibition to intervene in dilemmatic situations in which they have to choose between different actions with good reasons for each of the actions involved. Results reported indeed show that people to whom disinhibited behaviors were salient or people with stronger predispositions toward behavioral disinhibition were more likely to intervene in trolley and footbridge dilemmas.

No abstract

Social robots become increasingly human-like in appearance and behaviour. However, a large body of research shows that these robots tend to elicit negative feelings of eeriness, danger, and threat. In the present study, we explored whether and how human-like appearance and mind-attribution contribute to these negative feelings and clarified possible underlying mechanisms. Participants were presented with pictures of mechanical, humanoid, and android robots, and physical anthropomorphism (Studies 1-3), attribution of mind perception of agency and experience (Studies 2 and 3), threat to human-machine distinctiveness, and damage to humans and their identity were assessed for all three robot types. Replicating earlier research, human-machine distinctiveness mediated the influence of anthropomorphic appearance on the perceived damage for humans and their identity, and this mediation was due to anthropomorphic appearance of the robot. Perceived agency and experience did not show similar mediating effects on human-machine distinctiveness, but a positive relation with perceived damage for humans and their identity. Possible explanations are discussed. Keywords Human/robot interaction • Uncanny valley • Mind perception • Need for distinctiveness 1 I, Robot: How Human Appearance and Mind Attribution Relate to the Perceived Danger of RobotsWatching the movie 'Ex Machina', you quickly perceive Ava, the android main character of the movie, as a real human with emotions and feelings. Anthropomorphising Ava in this way, that is to ascribe human-like characteristics and/or intentions to non-human agents, is a fundamental human process that spontaneously happens and increases our social connection with non-human agents [1]. Although highly evolved robots seem a vision of the future, we already interact with artificial intelligent agents on a regular basis (e.g., Siri, Apple's speaking assistant, Amazon's Alexa, or CaMeLi, an avatar designed to help elderly in daily life). Developments in robot technology are proceeding rapidly: 'Social robots', i.e., robots that are designed to interact and communicate with people [2], feature increasingly more human-like appearances and behaviour. While, these technical developments are especially interesting when it comes to maintaining and improving our quality of life, for example in health care or education, a large body of research also shows that social robots tend to elicit negative feelings of eeriness, danger, and threat [3][4][5][6][7]. In the present study, we investigated the factors that elicit these negative feelings and clarified possible underlying mechanisms, including the extent to which robots look human-like and the extent to which they are attributed with a mind.

In the present study we investigated whether differences in the sense of agency influenced the effectiveness of both direct persuasion and self-persuasion techniques. By manipulating both the delay and contingency of the outcomes of actions, participants were led to experience either a low or high sense of agency. Participants were subsequently presented with arguments as to why a clean local environment is important (direct persuasion), or were asked to generate those arguments themselves (self-persuasion). Subsequently, participants’ cleanliness attitudes and willingness to participate in a campus cleanup were measured. The results show that techniques of direct persuasion influenced attitudes and volunteering behavior under conditions of low rather than high agency, whereas techniques of self-persuasion were most effective under conditions of high rather than low agency. The present findings therefore show how recent experiences of agency, a state based experience of control, can influence the effectiveness of both external and internal persuasion techniques.