Hazardous machinery:The assignment of agency and blame to robots versus non-autonomous machines

Autonomous robots increasingly perform functions that are potentially hazardous and could cause injury to people (e.g., autonomous driving). When this happens, questions will arise regarding responsibility, although autonomy complicates this issue – insofar as robots seem to control their own behaviour, where would blame be assigned? Across three experiments, we examined whether robots involved in harm are assigned agency and, consequently, blamed. In Studies 1 and 2, people assigned more agency to machines involved in accidents when they were described as ‘autonomous robots’ (vs. ‘machines’), and in turn, blamed them more, across a variety of contexts. In Study 2, robots and machines were assigned similar experience, and we found no evidence for a role of experience in blaming robots over machines. In Study 3, people assigned more agency and blame to a more (vs. less) sophisticated military robot involved in a civilian fatality. Humans who were responsible for robots' safe operation, however, were blamed similarly whether harms involved a robot (vs. machine; Study 1), or a more (vs. less; Study 3) sophisticated robot. These findings suggest that people spontaneously conceptualise robots' autonomy via humanlike agency, and consequently, consider them blameworthy agents

Why wealthier people think people are wealthier, and why it matters: From social sampling to attitudes to redistribution

Drawing on research and theory (discussed in Chapter 1) emphasising cognitive-ecological interaction and sampling processes in judgment (e.g., Fiedler, 2000), the present research investigated the role of social sampling (Galesic, Olsson & Reiskamp, 2012) in preferences for wealth redistribution. Two studies (Ch. 2) provide evidence that social sampling leads wealthier people to oppose redistributive policies. Wealthier participants reported higher levels of wealth in their social circles (Studies 1a and 1b) and, in turn, estimated wealthier population distributions, perceived the distribution as fairer and were more opposed to redistribution. Study 2 (Ch. 2), drawing data from a nationally representative survey, revealed that neighbourhood-level deprivation – an objective index of social circle wealth – mediated the relation between income and satisfaction with the economic status quo. In Studies 3a and 3b (Ch. 3), participants experimentally presented with a low (high) wealth income sample subsequently estimated poorer (wealthier) population distributions, demonstrating reliance upon the novel samples. The effect of the manipulation on redistributive preferences was sequentially mediated via estimated population distributions and fairness, such that participants shown a high wealth sample estimated less unequal (3a) or wealthier (3b) distributions, perceived the distribution as fairer and were more opposed to redistribution. Studies 4a and 4b (Ch. 4) tested whether warning against social sampling, providing an alternative sample or both interventions together might serve to reduce social sampling. Whereas providing an alternative sample alone was sufficient to eliminate social sampling (4a and 4b), providing a warning had no effect (4a), and providing both an alternative sample and a warning lead to an increase in social sampling (4a and 4b). Taken together, the findings suggest that a) social sampling produces systematic differences in wealthier and poorer peoples’ perceptions of the income distribution, b) social sampling contributes to divergence in the economic preferences of wealthy and poor and c) social sampling is likely immune to deliberate control efforts

Making sense of misfortune: Deservingness, self-esteem, and patterns of self-defeat.

Drawing on theorizing and research suggesting that people are motivated to view their world as an orderly and predictable place in which people get what they deserve, the authors proposed that (a) random and uncontrollable bad outcomes will lower self-esteem and (b) this, in turn, will lead to the adoption of self-defeating beliefs and behaviors. Four experiments demonstrated that participants who experienced or recalled bad (vs. good) breaks devalued their self-esteem (Studies 1a and 1b), and that decrements in self-esteem (whether arrived at through misfortune or failure experience) increase beliefs about deserving bad outcomes (Studies 1a, 1b, 2a, 2b). Five studies (Studies 3–7) extended these findings by showing that this, in turn, can engender a wide array of self-defeating beliefs and behaviors, including claimed self-handicapping ahead of an ability test (Study 3), the preference for others to view the self less favorably (Studies 4–5), chronic self-handicapping and thoughts of physical self-harm (Study 6), and choosing to receive negative feedback during an ability test (Study 7). The current findings highlight the important role that concerns about deservingness play in the link between lower self-esteem and patterns of self-defeating beliefs and behaviors. The theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed

Victims, Vignettes, and Videos: Meta-Analytic and Experimental Evidence that Emotional Impact Enhances the Derogation of Innocent Victims

Research during the 1960s found that observers could be moved enough by an innocent victim’s suffering to derogate their character. However, recent research has produced inconsistent evidence for this effect. We conducted the first meta-analysis (k = 55) of the experimental literature on the victim derogation effect to test the hypothesis that it varies as a function of the emotional impactfulness of the context for observers. We found that studies which employed more impactful contexts (e.g., that were real and vivid) reported larger derogation effects. Emotional impact was, however, confounded by year of appearance, such that older studies reported larger effects and were more impactful. To disentangle the role of emotional impact, in two primary experiments we found that more impactful contexts increased the derogation of an innocent victim. Overall, the findings advance our theoretical understanding of the contexts in which observers are more likely to derogate an innocent victim

Hazardous machinery: the assignment of agency and blame to robots versus non-autonomous machines

Autonomous robots increasingly perform functions that are potentially hazardous and could cause injury to people (e.g., autonomous driving). When this happens, questions will arise regarding responsibility, although autonomy complicates this issue – insofar as robots seem to control their own behaviour, where would blame be assigned? Across three experiments, we examined whether robots involved in harm are assigned agency and, consequently, blamed. In Studies 1 and 2, people assigned more agency to machines involved in accidents when they were described as ‘autonomous robots’ (vs. ‘machines’), and in turn, blamed them more, across a variety of contexts. In Study 2, robots and machines were assigned similar experience, and we found no evidence for a role of experience in blaming robots over machines. In Study 3, people assigned more agency and blame to a more (vs. less) sophisticated military robot involved in a civilian fatality. Humans who were responsible for robots’ safe operation, however, were blamed similarly whether harms involved a robot (vs. machine; Study 1), or a more (vs. less; Study 3) sophisticated robot. These findings suggest that people spontaneously conceptualise robots’ autonomy via humanlike agency, and consequently, consider them blameworthy agents

Where Does the Money Come From? Humanizing High Socioeconomic Status Groups Undermines Attitudes Toward Redistribution

The Supplementary Material for this article can be found online at: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg. 2019.00771/full#supplementary-materialThe concentration of wealth in the hands of a few at the expense of general impoverishment is a major problem in some modern societies. However, there is a general opposition to redistribution policies or to the application of a progressive taxation system. The goal of this research was to explore one factor that might drive the attitudes toward income redistribution: The (de)humanization of high socioeconomic status groups. Previous studies have shown that high socioeconomic status groups tend to be considered as unemotional machines without any concern for others. However, the consequences of mechanizing (vs. humanizing) high socioeconomic status on the interpretation of socioeconomic differences has not been explored yet. We considered that humanizing high socioeconomic status groups might have an unexpected negative effect on attitudes about income inequality and wealth concentration. Specifically, this research aims to determine how humanizing high socioeconomic status groups influences people’s perceptions of the group’s wealth and preferences for income redistribution. We conducted two studies in which we manipulated the humanity (mechanized vs. humanized in terms of their Human Nature traits) of a high socioeconomic status group. Results of these two studies showed that humanizing (vs. mechanizing) high socioeconomic status groups led to lower support for income redistribution/taxation of wealthy groups, through considering that the group’s wealth comes from internal sources (e.g., ambition) rather than external ones (e.g., corruption). These results were independent of the group’s likeability and perceived competence/warmth. The present research provides valuable insight about the possible dark side of humanizing high socioeconomic status groups as a process that could contribute to the maintenance of the status quo and the legitimation of income inequality in our societies.This research was supported by grants no. PSI2016-78839-P (Grant Recipient: RR-B) and No. PSI2017-83966-R (Grant Recipient: MM), from the Spanish Ministry of Economy, Industry and Competitiveness (Ministerio de Economía, Industria y Competitividad)

I Blame Therefore it Was: Rape Myth Acceptance, Victim Blaming, and Memory Reconstruction

We examined the causal order of relationships between rape myth acceptance (RMA), victim blaming, and memory reconstruction. In Study 1, RMA-congruent memory (or alternatively, victim blaming) mediated the relationship between RMA and victim blaming (memory reconstruction). In Study 2, similar relationships emerged between RMA, victim blaming, and memory reconstruction. Although no mediation of RMA occurred in Study 2 independently, a mini meta-analysis of Studies 1 and 2 data replicated both patterns of mediation observed in Study 1. In Study 3, memory accuracy for neutral details of a rape scenario was unrelated to RMA. Manipulating memory to be more (vs. less) RMA congruent had no effect on victim blaming (Study 4), although manipulating perceived victim blameworthiness (Studies 5 and 6) produced RMA-congruent memory reconstruction when the victim was more (vs. less) blameworthy. The results suggest that, via victim blaming, RMA motivates a memory reconstruction process that explains and justifies victim blaming after the fact

Someone is pulling the strings: hypersensitive agency detection and belief in conspiracy theories

We hypothesized that belief in conspiracy theories would be predicted by the general tendency to attribute agency and intentionality where it is unlikely to exist. We further hypothesized that this tendency would explain the relationship between education level and belief in conspiracy theories, where lower levels of education have been found to be associated with higher conspiracy belief. In Study 1 (N=202) participants were more likely to agree with a range of conspiracy theories if they also tended to attribute intentionality and agency to inanimate objects. As predicted, this relationship accounted for the link between education level and belief in conspiracy theories. We replicated this finding in Study 2 (N=330), whilst taking into account beliefs in paranormal phenomena. These results suggest that education may undermine the reasoning processes and assumptions that are reflected in conspiracy belief

Perceptions of Economic Inequality in Colombian Daily Life: More Than Unequal Distribution of Economic Resources

Research on perceptions of economic inequality focuses on estimations of the distribution of financial resources, such as perceived income gaps or wealth distribution. However, we argue that perceiving inequality is not limited to an economic idea but also includes other dimensions related to people’s daily life. We explored this idea by conducting an online survey (N = 601) in Colombia, where participants responded to an open-ended question regarding how they perceived economic inequality. We performed a content analysis of 1,624 responses to identify relevant topics and used network analysis tools to explore how such topics were interrelated. We found that perceived economic inequality is mainly represented by identifying social classes (e.g., the elites vs. the poor), intergroup relations based on discrimination and social exclusion, public spaces (e.g., beggars on streets, spatial segregation), and some dynamics about the distribution of economic resources and the quality of work (e.g., income inequality, precarious jobs). We discuss how different perceptions of economic inequality may frame how people understand and respond to inequality.This project was funded as a scholarship to pursue a doctoral degree given to EG-S COLCIENCIAS-679 (Colombia), and the PSI2016-78839-P MINECO (Spain) grant given to GWand RR-B

Asking about social circles improves election predictions

Election outcomes can be difficult to predict. A recent example is the 2016 US presidential election, in which Hillary Clinton lost five states that had been predicted to go for her, and with them the White House. Most election polls ask people about their own voting intentions: whether they will vote and, if so, for which candidate. We show that, compared with own-intention questions, social-circle questions that ask participants about the voting intentions of their social contacts improved predictions of voting in the 2016 US and 2017 French presidential elections. Responses to social-circle questions predicted election outcomes on national, state and individual levels, helped to explain last-minute changes in people’s voting intentions and provided information about the dynamics of echo chambers among supporters of different candidates