What question did this study set out to answer?

The aim is to investigate if the bystander effect influences helping intentions toward social robots as it does with humans.

The bystander effect in human–robot interaction: How the presence of bystanders inhibits helping intentions for a social robot.

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Randomized trial shows the bystander effect inhibits helping intentions in human-robot interaction, suggesting design improvements for robots.

The aim is to investigate if the bystander effect influences helping intentions toward social robots as it does with humans.
Conducted two preregistered experiments with 401 and 616 participants, respectively.
Incorporated video stimuli with a human victim for comparison and assessed helping intentions when bystanders were present.
Analyzed the effects on helping intentions toward social robots compared to human victims.
In Experiment 1, individuals were less likely to help the robot with a 25% decrease in helping intentions when bystanders were present.
Experiment 2 confirmed similar inhibitory effects on helping intentions toward both human and robot victims with no significant strength difference.
The findings reinforce that the bystander effect applies to human-robot interactions, highlighting implications for robot design.

Liu et al. (2026) studied this question.

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Randomized trial shows the bystander effect inhibits helping intentions in human-robot interaction, suggesting design improvements for robots.