Evidence showed that when interacting with human-like or social robots, humans perceive lower agency and control over the negative outcomes of their actions, raising the Diffusion Of Responsibility (DOR) phenomenon. In the present study, we examined whether DOR occurs when sharing a task with a robotic arm. To this end, we implemented a task in which human participants were asked to stop the inflation of a virtual balloon before it reached a pin and burst. However, every time they acted to stop the inflation of the balloon, they lost points from the starting score. Participants played the task alone or together with the Ned2 robot. Results showed that participants experienced increased responsibility over negative outcomes of their actions when sharing the task with Ned2 compared to when they performed the task alone. Together, our results showed for the first time that DOR does not occur when interacting with a non-humanoid robot.
Ciardo, F., Fava, A., Ricciardelli, P., Villani, V., Iani, C., Sabattini, L. (2026). Diffusion of Responsibility in HRI: Reduction of Human Agency Does not Occur When Sharing a Task with a Robotic Arm. In Social Robotics + AI 17th International Conference, ICSR+AI 2025, Naples, Italy, September 10–12, 2025, Proceedings, Part I (pp.625-631). Springer Science and Business Media Deutschland GmbH [10.1007/978-981-95-2379-5_55].
Diffusion of Responsibility in HRI: Reduction of Human Agency Does not Occur When Sharing a Task with a Robotic Arm
Ciardo, Francesca
Primo
;Ricciardelli, Paola;
2026
Abstract
Evidence showed that when interacting with human-like or social robots, humans perceive lower agency and control over the negative outcomes of their actions, raising the Diffusion Of Responsibility (DOR) phenomenon. In the present study, we examined whether DOR occurs when sharing a task with a robotic arm. To this end, we implemented a task in which human participants were asked to stop the inflation of a virtual balloon before it reached a pin and burst. However, every time they acted to stop the inflation of the balloon, they lost points from the starting score. Participants played the task alone or together with the Ned2 robot. Results showed that participants experienced increased responsibility over negative outcomes of their actions when sharing the task with Ned2 compared to when they performed the task alone. Together, our results showed for the first time that DOR does not occur when interacting with a non-humanoid robot.
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