Social, but not that social: No evidence that robots trigger self-categorization

This paper investigates through two experiments whether robots form a social category strong enough to trigger self-categorization in participants. Self-categorization theory poses that salient social groups influence people's self-concept, so that activation of an in-group category may cause people to define themselves more in line with the group stereotype, while activation of an out-group triggers a contrasting response. Social categorization thus exerts a subtle but pervasive influence as self-concept affects attitudes, cognition, and behavior. Previous research has shown that humans apply human social categories (such as race and gender) to robots. This research tests whether robots form their own social category strong enough to cause a temporary shift in humans’ active self-concept. In two online experiments participants were primed with humans, robots, or no social category. Self-categorization was recorded by both spontaneous and prompted self-report: participants completed a freehand self-description (which was coded for the extent to which it contained traits that set humans apart from robots) and rated themselves on a set of both desirable and undesirable human-specific traits. MANOVA was used to test the overall effect of condition, ANOVAs to follow up on individual measures. The first experiment ( N = 123) gave ambiguous results, as MANOVA indicated significant differences in self-categorization between the three conditions, but no differences were found for any of the individual DVs. To better interpret these results, a the second experiment provided a conceptual replication with a stronger experimental manipulation and larger sample ( N = 233). No significant differences between the three conditions were found for any of the self-categorization measures. Equivalence between conditions was established on the explicitly prompted measures, further supporting interpretations that priming did not yield any effect. This suggests that while robots may adopt human social categories, they currently do not form a social category of their own that triggers self-categorization processes.