Several empirical and theoretical studies have examined the role of robots in child-robot interaction, and they have shown that robotic agents could be perceived as social partners. Nonetheless, studies on moral development in preschoolers classically involve a human subject as violator of moral norms. No studies have ever analysed the situation in which the violator is a robotic agent. Investigating moral judgment to a moral transgression through use of the Happy Victimizer Task, and its effects on prosocial behaviour measured by means of the Dictator Game (DG), previous studies showed that children’s emotion attribution to a human victimizer can predict children’s altruistic behaviour. Following from these studies, which underline children’s sensitivity to violations of moral norms by a human partner, the present study aims at evaluating the effects of moral transgression on children’s moral judgment in Japanese preschoolers aged 5 years. Crucially, this study involved a child victimizer (CV) and a robot victimizer (RV). The present study aims to investigate the victimizer’s agent effect (Human or Robot) on children’s evaluation of two different video-recorded moral transgressions stories (Stealing and Not-Sharing) and on children’s altruistic behaviour measured through DG. The robot is judged worse than the human independent of the story; however, children attribute more positive emotion to the victimizer in the Not-Sharing story than Stealing story. The results on the DG showed no differences in children’s altruistic behaviour toward another human as a function of the victimizer’s agency, thus showing an equal distribution that is typical of this age. This data supports a decoupling between judgement and behaviour. Additionally, results on judgement support the hypothesis that children perceived the robot as a “perfect” machine or, at least, as a different kind of interactive entity.

Manzi, F., Di Dio, C., Itakura, S., Kanda, T., Ishiguro, H., Massaro, D., Marchetti, A., Moral evaluation of Human and Robot Interactions in Japanese Preschoolers, Paper, in Proceedings of the Workshop on Adapted intEraction with SociAl Robots, (Cagliari, 17-17 March 2020), CEUR Workshop Proceedings, Aachen 2020:2724 20-27 [https://hdl.handle.net/10807/162865]

Moral evaluation of Human and Robot Interactions in Japanese Preschoolers

Manzi, Federico
Primo
;
Di Dio, Cinzia
Secondo
;
Massaro, Davide
Penultimo
;
Marchetti, Antonella
Ultimo
2020

Abstract

Several empirical and theoretical studies have examined the role of robots in child-robot interaction, and they have shown that robotic agents could be perceived as social partners. Nonetheless, studies on moral development in preschoolers classically involve a human subject as violator of moral norms. No studies have ever analysed the situation in which the violator is a robotic agent. Investigating moral judgment to a moral transgression through use of the Happy Victimizer Task, and its effects on prosocial behaviour measured by means of the Dictator Game (DG), previous studies showed that children’s emotion attribution to a human victimizer can predict children’s altruistic behaviour. Following from these studies, which underline children’s sensitivity to violations of moral norms by a human partner, the present study aims at evaluating the effects of moral transgression on children’s moral judgment in Japanese preschoolers aged 5 years. Crucially, this study involved a child victimizer (CV) and a robot victimizer (RV). The present study aims to investigate the victimizer’s agent effect (Human or Robot) on children’s evaluation of two different video-recorded moral transgressions stories (Stealing and Not-Sharing) and on children’s altruistic behaviour measured through DG. The robot is judged worse than the human independent of the story; however, children attribute more positive emotion to the victimizer in the Not-Sharing story than Stealing story. The results on the DG showed no differences in children’s altruistic behaviour toward another human as a function of the victimizer’s agency, thus showing an equal distribution that is typical of this age. This data supports a decoupling between judgement and behaviour. Additionally, results on judgement support the hypothesis that children perceived the robot as a “perfect” machine or, at least, as a different kind of interactive entity.
2020
Inglese
Proceedings of the Workshop on Adapted intEraction with SociAl Robots
Workshop on Adapted intEraction with SociAl Robots
Cagliari
Paper
17-mar-2020
17-mar-2020
CEUR Workshop Proceedings
Manzi, F., Di Dio, C., Itakura, S., Kanda, T., Ishiguro, H., Massaro, D., Marchetti, A., Moral evaluation of Human and Robot Interactions in Japanese Preschoolers, Paper, in Proceedings of the Workshop on Adapted intEraction with SociAl Robots, (Cagliari, 17-17 March 2020), CEUR Workshop Proceedings, Aachen 2020:2724 20-27 [https://hdl.handle.net/10807/162865]
File in questo prodotto:
File Dimensione Formato  
Manzi_et_al_Moral_evaluation_japanese_preschoolers.pdf

accesso aperto

Descrizione: Paper_PDF
Tipologia file ?: Versione Editoriale (PDF)
Licenza: Creative commons
Dimensione 1.76 MB
Formato Adobe PDF
1.76 MB Adobe PDF Visualizza/Apri

I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.

Utilizza questo identificativo per citare o creare un link a questo documento: https://hdl.handle.net/10807/162865
Citazioni
  • ???jsp.display-item.citation.pmc??? ND
  • Scopus 10
  • ???jsp.display-item.citation.isi??? ND
social impact