Hitting a robot vs. hitting a human

Abstract

The present project aimed to study how people make moral judgment for human versus robot behaviors. Ten transgression scenarios were presented to the participants with either a human or a robot as the perpetrator or the victim. Results showed that most of the transgressions were perceived as less immoral when it was acted on a robot than on a human. Moral judgments for human behaviors were more intuitive and emotion based. Moral judgments for robot behaviors involve both intuition and cognitive reasoning. Possible psychological causes were discussed.