Too Good to Be True

People Reject Free Gifts from Robots Because They Infer Bad Intentions

Dados Bibliográficos

ID17812228
AutoresBenjamin LeBrun (0000-0001-9383-5602), Andrew Vonasch (0000-0002-2784-5420), Christoph Bartneck (0000-0003-4566-4815)
Ano2026
Volume18
Fascículo5
Data de publicação2026-04-30
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessSim
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoInternational Journal of Social Robotics (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 1875-4791 • E-ISSN: 1875-4805
EditoraSpringer Science+Business Media (PUBLISHER • DE)
DOI10.1007/s12369-026-01395-x
OpenAlexW4394780983
IdiomaEN
Referências citadas59

A recent psychology study found that people sometimes reject overly generous offers from people because they imagine hidden ''phantom costs'' must be part of the transaction. Phantom costs occur when a person seems overly generous for no apparent reason. This study aims to explore whether people can imagine phantom costs when interacting with a robot. To this end, screen or physically embodied agents (human or robot) offered to people either a cookie or a cookie + \$2. Participants were then asked to make a choice whether they would accept or decline the offer. Results showed that people did perceive phantom costs in the offer + \$2 conditions when interacting with a human, but also with a robot, across both embodiment levels, leading to the characteristic behavioral effect that offering more money made people less likely to accept the offer. While people were more likely to accept offers from a robot than from a human, people more often accepted offers from humans when they were physically compared to screen embodied but were equally likely to accept the offer from a robot whether it was screen or physically embodied. This suggests that people can treat robots (and humans) as social agents with hidden intentions and knowledge, and that this influences their behavior toward them. This provides not only new insights on how people make decisions when interacting with a robot but also how robot embodiment impacts HRI research

Cognitive psychology · Embodied cognition · Human–computer interaction · Internet privacy · Robot · AI in Service Interactions · Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science · Psychology · Social Psychology · Social Robot Interaction and HRI