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Category: Project

Description: Embodied digital technologies (EDTs; e.g., robots) are becoming more prevalent in society and will be increasingly involved in decisions with moral consequences for human beings. While it remains uncertain whether robots can be actually equipped with 'true' morality, it is of vital interest to investigate how their decisions in moral situations are perceived and evaluated by humans. Previous studies show that robots can indeed be perceived as moral agents, but that they might be less blamed and ascribed less responsibility than humans. Since robots differ greatly in their appearance, one related question is whether their physical features affect how their decisions are responded to. There is some evidence that evaluations of decisions of human-like looking robots (vs. machine-like looking robots) are more similar to the evaluation of decisions of human agents. However, findings are not entirely consistent and open questions remain. In this online study we aim to investigate how physical characteristics of robots, in particular human-likeness, affect (1) the evaluation of their decisions in (fictious) moral dilemmas and (2) the attribution of perceived features (e.g., competence, warmth, experience etc.) and how (3) these attributed characteristics in turn modify responses to robots' moral decisions. We also investigate further potential sources of individual differences in these variables, namely knowledge about and attitudes towards robots (fear and acceptance of robots), religiosity, and personality traits (i.e., Need for Cognition, Dark Triad).