Social Identity in Human-Agent Interaction

A Primer

Bibliographic Data

ID22190834
AuthorsKatie Seaborn (0000-0002-7812-9096, University of Cambridge, corresponding author)
Year2025
Publication date2025-08-12
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueACM Transactions on Human-Robot Interaction (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 2573-9522 • E-ISSN: 2573-9522
PublisherAssociation for Computing Machinery (ACM) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1145/3760500
OpenAlexW4413186524
LanguageEN
Citations received4
References cited134

Social identity theory (SIT) and social categorization theory (SCT) are two facets of the social identity approach (SIA) to understanding social phenomena. SIT and SCT are models that describe and explain how people interact with one another socially, connecting the individual to the group through an understanding of underlying psychological mechanisms and intergroup behaviour. SIT, originally developed in the 1970s, and SCT, a later, more general offshoot, have been broadly applied to a range of social phenomena among people. The rise of increasingly social machines embedded in daily life has spurned efforts on understanding whether and how artificial agents can and do participate in SIA activities. As agents like social robots and chatbots powered by sophisticated large language models (LLMs) advance, understanding the real and potential roles of these technologies as social entities is crucial. Here, I provide a primer on SIA and extrapolate, through case studies and imagined examples, how SIT and SCT can apply to artificial social agents. I emphasize that not all human models and sub-theories will apply. I further argue that, given the emerging competence of these machines and our tendency to be taken in by them, we experts may need to don the hat of the uncanny killjoy, for our own good

Aesthetics · Art · Social group · Social identity theory · Sociology · Chemistry · Language and cultural evolution · Opinion Dynamics and Social Influence · Psychology · Social Psychology · Social Robot Interaction and HRI

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