Prosocial behavior towards machines

Abstract

Building on the Computers Are Social Actors framework, we provide an overview of research demonstrating that humans behave prosocially towards machines. In doing so, we outline that similar motivational and cognitive processes play a role when people act in prosocial ways towards humans and machines. These include perceiving the machine as somewhat human, applying social categories to the machine, being socially influenced by the machine, and experiencing social emotions towards the machine. We conclude that studying prosocial behavior towards machines is important to facilitate proper functioning of human-machine interactions. We further argue that machines provide an interesting yet under-utilized resource in the study of prosocial behavior, because they are both highly controllable and humanlike.

Sharing Money With Humans Versus Computers: On the Role of Honesty-Humility and (Non-)Social Preferences

“…Indeed, Ferraro and Vossler (2010) found that presenting participants with highly detailed game instructions decreased confusion. Second, our findings for our as if measure imply that people (mis)apply social standards to non-human agents, such as computers (Nass & Moon, 2000; Nielsen et al, 2022). Thus, the virtual player method may not exclusively measure non-social behavior, as social motives seem to partly drive behavior.…”

“…Although similarities were previously interpreted as confusion, our results imply that these similarities also show that individuals tend to express their social preferences in non-social settings. Indeed, our paper highlights the potential of non-social settings as a method of inquiry into prosocial behavior (see Nielsen et al, 2022). Overall, the current work is an initial step in bridging the gap between research on prosocial personality and confusion—in economic games and beyond.…”