Teammates first: Favoring ingroup robots over outgroup humans

Abstract

When it's between a robot on your team and a human member of a competing team, who will you favor? Past research indicates that people favor and behave more morally toward ingroup than outgroup members. Conversely, people typically indicate that they have more moral responsibilities toward humans than nonhumans. This study puts participants into two competing teams, each consisting of two humans and two robots, to examine how people behave toward others depending on Group (ingroup, outgroup) and Agent (human, robot) variables. Measures of behavioral aggression used in previous studies (i.e., noise blasts) and reported liking and anthropomorphism evaluations of humans and robots indicated that participants favored the ingroup over the outgroup, and humans over robots. Group had a greater effect than Agent, so participants preferred ingroup robots to outgroup humans.