Influence of Agent Type and Task Ambiguity on Conformity in Social Decision Making

Abstract

Previous research has demonstrated reliable effects of social pressure on conformity and social decision-making in human-human interaction. The current study investigates whether non-human agents are also capable of inducing similar social pressure effects; in particular, we examined whether the degree of physical human-likeness of an agent (i.e., appearance) modulates conformity and whether potential effects of agent type on conformity are modulated further by task ambiguity. To answer these questions, participants performed a line judgment task together with agents of different degrees of humanness (human, robot, computer) in either a high or low ambiguity version of the task. We expected an increase in conformity rates for agents with increasing levels of physical humanness, as well as for increasing levels of task ambiguity. Results showed low-level conformity with all agents, with a significant difference in conformity between the high and low ambiguity version of the task (i.e., stronger compliance for the high versus the low task); the degree of humanness, however, did not have an influence on conformity rates (neither alone or in combination with task type). The results suggest that when performing a task together with others, participants always conform to some degree with the social interaction partner independent of its level of humanness; the level of conformity, however, depends on task ambiguity with stronger compliance across agents for more ambiguous tasks.