The Peg-Turning Dilemma

Abstract

This paper presents the results of a preregistered pilot study testing an experimental framework to measure altruistic behaviour towards robots. We define altruistic behaviour as behaviour that benefits others at a personal cost to the behaving individual. The pilot study explores feelings of guilt and perceived agency and experience (i.e., mind) in the robot as potential predictors of altruistic behaviour. Using a within-subjects design (n=48), we compared the willingness to perform a dull, repetitive task (i.e., turning pegs in a pegboard) to avoid shaking (harming) either an emotion-simulating robot, or a non-responsive object. The results showed that participants felt significantly more guilty after shaking the robot than after shaking the object, and they perceived more agency and experience in the robot than in the object. Finally, even though participants felt significantly more bored after performing the peg-turning task than after subsequent tasks, they were significantly more willing to repeat this task to avoid shaking the robot again, compared to the object. An exploratory regression analysis showed that feelings of guilt were the only significant predictor of this behaviour.