Who or What is to Blame? Personality and Situational Attributions of Robot Behavior

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Autumn Edwards ◽  
Chad Edwards
Keyword(s):  
Social Robot ◽  
Current Experiment ◽  
Fundamental Attribution Error ◽  
Robot Behavior ◽  
Attribution Error

The Fundamental Attribution Error (FAE) is the tendency for people to over-emphasize dispositional or personality-based explanations for others’ behavior while under-emphasizing situational explanations. Compared to people, current robots are less agentic and autonomous and more driven by programming, design, and humans-in-the-loop. People do nonetheless assign them agency and intentionality and blame. The purpose of the current experiment is to determine whether people commit the FAE in response to the behaviors of a social robot.

scholarly journals The Fundamental Attribution Error in Human-Robot Interaction: An Experimental Investigation on Attributing Responsibility to a Social Robot for Its Pre-Programmed Behavior

2022 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aike C. Horstmann ◽  
Nicole C. Krämer
Keyword(s):  
Experimental Investigation ◽  
Attribution Theory ◽  
Social Robots ◽  
Social Robot ◽  
Human Robot Interaction ◽  
Robot Interaction ◽  
Fundamental Attribution Error ◽  
Online Study ◽  
The Social ◽  
Attribution Error

AbstractSince social robots are rapidly advancing and thus increasingly entering people’s everyday environments, interactions with robots also progress. For these interactions to be designed and executed successfully, this study considers insights of attribution theory to explore the circumstances under which people attribute responsibility for the robot’s actions to the robot. In an experimental online study with a 2 × 2 × 2 between-subjects design (N = 394), people read a vignette describing the social robot Pepper either as an assistant or a competitor and its feedback, which was either positive or negative during a subsequently executed quiz, to be generated autonomously by the robot or to be pre-programmed by programmers. Results showed that feedback believed to be autonomous leads to more attributed agency, responsibility, and competence to the robot than feedback believed to be pre-programmed. Moreover, the more agency is ascribed to the robot, the better the evaluation of its sociability and the interaction with it. However, only the valence of the feedback affects the evaluation of the robot’s sociability and the interaction with it directly, which points to the occurrence of a fundamental attribution error.

scholarly journals Does the Correspondence Bias Apply to Social Robots?: Dispositional and Situational Attributions of Human Versus Robot Behavior

2022 ◽  
Vol 8 ◽  
Author(s):  
Autumn Edwards ◽  
Chad Edwards
Keyword(s):  
Social Robots ◽  
Causal Inferences ◽  
Correspondence Bias ◽  
Fundamental Attribution Error ◽  
Human Agent ◽  
Robot Behavior ◽  
And Behaviors ◽  
Attribution Error

Increasingly, people interact with embodied machine communicators and are challenged to understand their natures and behaviors. The Fundamental Attribution Error (FAE, sometimes referred to as the correspondence bias) is the tendency for individuals to over-emphasize personality-based or dispositional explanations for other people’s behavior while under-emphasizing situational explanations. This effect has been thoroughly examined with humans, but do people make the same causal inferences when interpreting the actions of a robot? As compared to people, social robots are less autonomous and agentic because their behavior is wholly determined by humans in the loop, programming, and design choices. Nonetheless, people do assign robots agency, intentionality, personality, and blame. Results of an experiment showed that participants made correspondent inferences when evaluating both human and robot speakers, attributing their behavior to underlying attitudes even when it was clearly coerced. However, they committed a stronger correspondence bias in the case of the robot–an effect driven by the greater dispositional culpability assigned to robots committing unpopular behavior–and they were more confident in their attitudinal judgments of robots than humans. Results demonstrated some differences in the global impressions of humans and robots based on behavior valence and choice. Judges formed more generous impressions of the robot agent when its unpopular behavior was coerced versus chosen; a tendency not displayed when forming impressions of the human agent. Implications of attributing robot behavior to disposition, or conflating robot actors with their actions, are addressed.

Control charts: Minimizing fundamental attribution error in appraisal decisions

2010 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas H. Stone ◽  
I. M. Jawahar ◽  
Ken Eastman ◽  
Gabi Eissa
Keyword(s):  
Control Charts ◽  
Fundamental Attribution Error ◽  
Attribution Error

The perception of drinking roles by recovering problem drinkers

1981 ◽  
Vol 11 (4) ◽  
pp. 747-754 ◽  
Author(s):  
John McCartney ◽  
Patrick J. O'Donnell
Keyword(s):  
Role Conflict ◽  
Drinking Patterns ◽  
Problem Drinkers ◽  
Negative Effects ◽  
Fundamental Attribution Error ◽  
Controlled Drinking ◽  
Attribution Error ◽  
Different Characteristics

SynopsisThe perception of and attitude to drinking patterns in recovering problem drinkers (N= 29) is analysed, utilizing a similar methodology to that of Richard & Burley (1978). Fault is found, however, in the latter study both in a failure to define variables and in the authors' statistical handling of the results. In the present study, it was found that controlled drinking is only seen as close to the problem drinker's concept of himself when it entails reasonably high levels of consumption. The importance of this finding for therapy is outlined. The possible negative effects of role conflict are mentioned. It is also found that problem drinkers perceive themselves as having quite different characteristics from those they themselves attribute to alcoholics. This finding is interpreted in terms of the fundamental attribution error (Jones & Nisbett, 1972).

scholarly journals 'Do You see what I'm Dealing with here?' Vicious circles in conflict

2014 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 30-38
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Biases ◽  
The Self ◽  
Fundamental Attribution Error ◽  
Attribution Error ◽  
Biases And Heuristics ◽  
Bullying And Harassment

We know that our thinking is affected by conflict; this applies to groups and nations as much as to individuals. Mediators are at the sharp end of this phenomenon, and those we work with often find each other’s behaviour at best inexplicable and at worst malicious. This article considers how biases and heuristics (mental shortcuts) can exacerbate disputes. Two cognitive biases in particular can contribute to the growth of conflict: the fundamental attribution error and the self-serving bias. Using a workplace mediation case study the article traces the step-by-step mechanics of conflict in people’s thinking and its tendency to set in motion vicious circles of suspicion and defence. It goes on to provide a critique of bullying and harassment policies before proposing that they begin with a mediation stage in order to combat attribution errors by bringing more data into play.

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