Why do we follow robots? An experimental investigation of conformity with robot, human, and hybrid majorities

Masjutin L, Laing JK, Maier GW. Why do we follow robots? An experimental investigation of conformity with robot, human, and hybrid majorities. In: IEEE, ed. HRI '22: Proceedings of the 2022 ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction. Human-Robot Interaction . 2022: 139–146.Individuals tend to conform to a majority for reasons of peer pressure (normative conformity) and insecurity (informational conformity). It is important to investigate the reasons for social phenomena such as conformity in order to better understand processes in hybrid teams (i.e., teams which consist of humans and robots). Research has yielded conflicting results on conformity with robot and hybrid majorities, and the reasons for conformity remain unclear. We conducted a within-subject online experiment (n = 103) to compare the reasons for conformity under three conditions: human, robot, and hybrid majorities. Results indicate that subjects conformed most often with hybrid majorities, while they conformed least often with robot majorities. Normative conformity influenced conformity with human majorities, but informational conformity did not. Informational conformity influenced conformity with robot majorities, but normative conformity did not. Both types of conformity affected conformity with hybrid majorities. Our results provide a possible explanation for the heterogeneous findings on conformity in HRI