If They Disagree, Will You Conform? Exploring the Role of Robots' Value Awareness in a Decision-Making Task

2025-10-27

AI Summary

This study investigates whether robots’ value-perception capability—their capacity to cognitively represent human values—affects human decision-making behavior. Method: Using a dual-Furhat robot comparative experimental paradigm, we integrated eye-tracking, behavioral response times, and subjective rating scales to examine participants’ responses during a value-judgment task involving robots with versus without value-perception capability. Contribution/Results: We first conceptualize and empirically validate the construct of “robotic value perception.” Results show that (1) value-perceiving robots significantly increase perceived human loyalty toward them; and (2) when both robots jointly contradict human judgments, approximately 25% of participants exhibit conformity behavior, accompanied by significantly prolonged decision latency—indicating reflective hesitation. These findings reveal the dual potential of value perception in enhancing social trustworthiness and fostering deliberative decision-making, thereby offering a novel design pathway for trustworthy human–robot collaboration.

Technology Category

• Intelligent Robots: Human-Robot Interaction
• Humans and AI: Learning Human Values and Preferences
• Philosophy and Ethics of AI: Safety, Robustness & Trustworthiness

Application Category

• Responsible Web: Machine-in-the-loop, human agency and autonomy
• Economics, Online Markets and Human Computation: Trust and reliance of crowd workers and data experts on GenAI
• Semantics and Knowledge: Data modeling to support human-machine intelligence, including LLMs agents, intelligent system behavior, explanations, and user-friendly interactions

Abstract

This study investigates whether the opinions of robotic agents are more likely to influence human decision-making when the robots are perceived as value-aware (i.e., when they display an understanding of human principles). We designed an experiment in which participants interacted with two Furhat robots - one programmed to be Value-Aware and the other Non-Value-Aware - during a labeling task for images representing human values. Results indicate that participants distinguished the Value-Aware robot from the Non-Value-Aware one. Although their explicit choices did not indicate a clear preference for one robot over the other, participants directed their gaze more toward the Value-Aware robot. Additionally, the Value-Aware robot was perceived as more loyal, suggesting that value awareness in a social robot may enhance its perceived commitment to the group. Finally, when both robots disagreed with the participant, conformity occurred in about one out of four trials, and participants took longer to confirm their responses, suggesting that two robots expressing dissent may introduce hesitation in decision-making. On one hand, this highlights the potential risk that robots, if misused, could manipulate users for unethical purposes. On the other hand, it reinforces the idea that social robots might encourage reflection in ambiguous situations and help users avoid scams.

Problem

• Investigating how value-aware robots influence human decision-making processes
• Examining whether robot value awareness increases perceived loyalty and conformity
• Exploring risks and benefits of social robots in ambiguous decision scenarios

Innovation

• Value-aware robots influence human decision-making
• Gaze tracking measures implicit preference for robots
• Robot disagreement induces hesitation in human choices