skip to main content
10.5555/1734454.1734545acmconferencesArticle/Chapter ViewAbstractPublication PageshriConference Proceedingsconference-collections
research-article

Critic, compatriot, or chump?: responses to robot blame attribution

Published: 02 March 2010 Publication History

Abstract

As their abilities improve, robots will be placed in roles of greater responsibility and specialization. In these contexts, robots may attribute blame to humans in order to identify problems and help humans make sense of complex information. In a between-participants experiment with a single factor (blame target) and three levels (human blame vs. team blame vs. self blame) participants interacted with a robot in a learning context, teaching it their personal preferences. The robot performed poorly, then attributed blame to either the human, the team, or itself. Participants demonstrated a powerful and consistent negative response to the human-blaming robot. Participants preferred the self-blaming robot over both the human and team blame robots. Implications for theory and design are discussed.

References

[1]
V. Groom and C. Nass, "Can robots be teammates?: Benchmarks and predictors of failure in human-robot teams," Interaction Studies, vol. 8, no. 3, pp. 483--500.
[2]
B. Reeves and C. Nass, The Media Equation. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 1996.
[3]
C. Nass, J. S. Steuer and E. Tauber, "Computers are social actors," Proceedings of Human Factors in Computing Systems, Boston, MA {CHI '94, ACM Press, New York, NY, 72--77, 1994}.
[4]
C. Nass and S. B. Brave, Wired for Speech. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2005.
[5]
B. Friedman, R. H. Kahn and J. Hagman, "Hardware Companions? What Online AIBO Discussion Forums Reveal about the Human-Robotic Relationship," Proceedings of CHI 2003 {CHI '03, ACM Press, 273--280, 2003}.
[6]
B. Mutlu, S. Oman, J. Forlizzi and S. Kiesler, "Perceptions of ASIMO," Proceedings of HRI 2006, {ACM Press, 351--352, 2006}.
[7]
C. Breazeal, C. D. Kidd, A. L. Thomaz, G. Hoffman and M. Berlin, "Effects of nonverbal communication on efficiency and robustness in human-robot teamwork," presented at IROS 2005.
[8]
M. L. Walters, K. Dautenhahn, S. N. Woods and K. L. Koay, "Robot etiquette," Proceeding of HRI 2007 {ACM Press, 317--324, 2007}.
[9]
E. Wang, C. Lignos, A. Vatsal, and B. Scassellati, "Effects of head movement on perceptions of humanoid robot behavior, Proceedings of HRI 2006, 180--185.
[10]
C. Geertz, The interpretation of cultures. New York, NY: Basic Books, 2000.
[11]
E. Goffman, E. The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. New York, NY: Anchor Books, 1959.
[12]
L. Takayama, V. Groom, P. Ochi, C. Nass, "I'm sorry Dave: I'm afraid I won't do that: Social aspects of human-agent conflict," Proceeding of Human Factoris in Computing Systems, Boston, MA, 2009.
[13]
C. Torrey, "How robots can help: Communication strategies that improve social outcomes," 2009.
[14]
F. Heider, The Psychology of Interpersonal Relations. New York, NY: John Wiley and Sons, 1958.
[15]
L. Ross, "The intuitive psychologist and his shortcomings," in Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, vol. 10, L. Berkowitz, Ed. New York: Academic Press, 1977, pp. 173--220.
[16]
D. T. Miller and M. Ross, "Self-serving biases in the attribution of causality: Fact or fiction?," Psychological Bulletin, vol. 82, no. 2, pp. 213--225.
[17]
R. E. Lane, "Moral blame and causal explanation," Journal of Applied Psychology, vol. 1, no. 1, pp. 45--58.
[18]
K. Shaver, The Attribution of Blame: Causality, Responsibility and Blameworthiness. New York, NY: Springer-Verlag, 1985.
[19]
B. Weiner, Judgements of Responsibility. New York, NY: Guilford Press, 1995.
[20]
W. L. Davis and D. E. Davis, "Internal-external control and attribution of responsibility for success and failure," Journal of Personality, vol. 40, no. 1, pp. 123--136.
[21]
V. S. Folkes, "Recent attribution research in consumer behavior: A review and new directions," Journal of Consumer Research, vol. 14, pp. 548--565.
[22]
P. D. Sweeney, K. Anderson, S. Bailey, "Attributional style in depression: A meta-analytic view," Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, vol. 50, no. 5, pp. 974--991.
[23]
T. Green, R. Bailey, O. Zinser and D. E. Williams, "Causal attribution and affective response as mediated by task performance and self-acceptance," Psychological Reports, vol. 75, no. 3, pp. 1555--1562.
[24]
Y. Moon, "Don't blame the computer: When self-disclosure moderates the self-serving bias," Journal of Consumer Psychology, vol. 75, no. 5, pp. 125--137.
[25]
I. M. Jonsson, C. Nass, J. Endo, B. Reaves, H. Harris, J. L. Ta, N. Chan, S. Knapp, "Don't blame me I am Only the Driver: Impact of blame attribution on attitudes and attention to driving task," presented at CHI '04.
[26]
B. Mutlu and J. Forlizzi, "Robots in Organizations: Workflow, Social, and Environmental Factors in Human-Robot Interaction," Proceedings of the 3rd ACM/IEEE Conference on Human-Robot Interaction, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.

Cited By

View all
  • (2019)Communicating Dominance in a Nonanthropomorphic Robot Using LocomotionACM Transactions on Human-Robot Interaction10.1145/33103578:1(1-14)Online publication date: 6-Mar-2019
  • (2018)An Explorative Comparison of Blame Attributions to Companion Robots Across Various Moral DilemmasProceedings of the 6th International Conference on Human-Agent Interaction10.1145/3284432.3284463(269-276)Online publication date: 4-Dec-2018
  • (2015)Robot Presence and Human HonestyProceedings of the Tenth Annual ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction10.1145/2696454.2696487(181-188)Online publication date: 2-Mar-2015
  • Show More Cited By

Index Terms

  1. Critic, compatriot, or chump?: responses to robot blame attribution

    Recommendations

    Comments

    Information & Contributors

    Information

    Published In

    cover image ACM Conferences
    HRI '10: Proceedings of the 5th ACM/IEEE international conference on Human-robot interaction
    March 2010
    400 pages
    ISBN:9781424448937

    Sponsors

    Publisher

    IEEE Press

    Publication History

    Published: 02 March 2010

    Check for updates

    Author Tags

    1. blame attribution
    2. face-threatening acts
    3. human-robot interaction
    4. politeness

    Qualifiers

    • Research-article

    Conference

    HRI 10
    Sponsor:

    Acceptance Rates

    HRI '10 Paper Acceptance Rate 26 of 124 submissions, 21%;
    Overall Acceptance Rate 268 of 1,124 submissions, 24%

    Contributors

    Other Metrics

    Bibliometrics & Citations

    Bibliometrics

    Article Metrics

    • Downloads (Last 12 months)9
    • Downloads (Last 6 weeks)0
    Reflects downloads up to 05 Mar 2025

    Other Metrics

    Citations

    Cited By

    View all
    • (2019)Communicating Dominance in a Nonanthropomorphic Robot Using LocomotionACM Transactions on Human-Robot Interaction10.1145/33103578:1(1-14)Online publication date: 6-Mar-2019
    • (2018)An Explorative Comparison of Blame Attributions to Companion Robots Across Various Moral DilemmasProceedings of the 6th International Conference on Human-Agent Interaction10.1145/3284432.3284463(269-276)Online publication date: 4-Dec-2018
    • (2015)Robot Presence and Human HonestyProceedings of the Tenth Annual ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction10.1145/2696454.2696487(181-188)Online publication date: 2-Mar-2015
    • (2015)Observer Perception of Dominance and Mirroring Behavior in Human-Robot RelationshipsProceedings of the Tenth Annual ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction10.1145/2696454.2696459(133-140)Online publication date: 2-Mar-2015
    • (2011)When the robot criticizes you...Proceedings of the 6th international conference on Human-robot interaction10.1145/1957656.1957778(295-296)Online publication date: 6-Mar-2011

    View Options

    Login options

    View options

    PDF

    View or Download as a PDF file.

    PDF

    eReader

    View online with eReader.

    eReader

    Figures

    Tables

    Media

    Share

    Share

    Share this Publication link

    Share on social media