Attitudes Toward Attributed Agency: Role of Perceived Control

Abstract

Abstract Previous research suggests that the increased attribution of agency to robots may be linked to negative attitudes toward robots. If robots are truly expected to assume various roles in our social environment, it is necessary to further explore how increasing agency, for example through increasing levels of autonomy, affects attitudes toward them. This study investigates the role of perceived control as a moderator explaining attitudes toward attributed agency in a collaboration context. Austrian-based participants ( $$\hbox {N}=102$$ <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"> <mml:mrow> <mml:mtext>N</mml:mtext> <mml:mo>=</mml:mo> <mml:mn>102</mml:mn> </mml:mrow> </mml:math> ) watched a video of a robot collaborating with a person to assemble a mixer—the robot was presented as either agentic and capable of proactively collaborating with the human or non-agentic and only capable of following human commands. The results show that attributing high levels of agency to robots is associated with negative attitudes toward them when individuals perceive low control during the collaboration.