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About

Marianna Drosinou is a researcher specializing in the moral psychology of artificial intelligence and human-robot interaction, with a particular focus on how people perceive and morally evaluate robots and AI agents in ethically complex situations. Her work sits at a compelling intersection of cognitive science, ethics, and emerging technology studies. Drosinou's most cited contribution — "Evaluating the Replicability of the Uncanny Valley Effect" (2018, 41 citations) — critically examines one of robotics' most discussed phenomena, questioning the methodological robustness of prior research. Her investigations into nursing robots and patient autonomy (32 citations) and sex robots and pathogen disgust (22 citations) demonstrate her breadth in exploring real-world AI ethics through rigorous experimental design, often across multiple studies with thousands of participants. A recurring theme in her research is the asymmetry between how humans judge AI versus human moral agents — her work consistently reveals that people hold robots to heightened moral standards. Her two-part book contribution on moral psychology and artificial agents synthesizes this growing field for broader academic audiences. With over 130 cumulative citations and ongoing work exploring AI-assisted euthanasia decisions, Drosinou's research offers essential empirical grounding for debates about how society should design, deploy, and morally reason about increasingly autonomous AI systems.