Open AccessAlmost human: Anthropomorphism increases trust resilience in cognitive agents.
Author(s) -
Ewart J. de Visser,
Samuel S. Monfort,
Ryan McKendrick,
Melissa Smith,
Patrick E. McKnight,
Frank Krueger,
Raja Parasuraman
Publication year - 2016
Publication title -
journal of experimental psychology. applied
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.004
H-Index - 84
eISSN - 1939-2192
pISSN - 1076-898X
DOI - 10.1037/xap0000092
Subject(s) - viewpoints , contradiction , avatar , social psychology , psychology , automation , psychological resilience , computer science , cognitive psychology , human–computer interaction , epistemology , engineering , mechanical engineering , art , philosophy , visual arts
We interact daily with computers that appear and behave like humans. Some researchers propose that people apply the same social norms to computers as they do to humans, suggesting that social psychological knowledge can be applied to our interactions with computers. In contrast, theories of human–automation interaction postulate that humans respond to machines in unique and specific ways. We believe that anthropomorphism—the degree to which an agent exhibits human characteristics—is the critical variable that may resolve this apparent contradiction across the formation, violation, and repair stages of trust. Three experiments were designed to examine these opposing viewpoints by varying the appearance and behavior of automated agents. Participants received advice that deteriorated gradually in reliability from a computer, avatar, or human agent. Our results showed (a) that anthropomorphic agents were associated with greater trust resilience , a higher resistance to breakdowns in trust; (b) that these effects were magnified by greater uncertainty; and c) that incorporating human-like trust repair behavior largely erased differences between the agents. Automation anthropomorphism is therefore a critical variable that should be carefully incorporated into any general theory of human–agent trust as well as novel automation design.