Effect of relative status on responsibility attributions in human–robot collaboration: Mediating role of sense of responsibility and moderating role of power distance orientation

This study investigates the effect of relative status on responsibility attributions in situations in which people and a humanoid robot collectively contribute to an outcome. A 3 × 2 experiment was conducted using the robot status (supervisor, peer, and subordinate) and the attribution target (robot or self) as independent variables. Fifty-four students from a university campus participated in the experiment. The participants were randomly assigned into three groups with balanced gender. In the experiment, the participants and the humanoid robot Nao cooperated on joint tasks of product poster selection. Subsequently, the participants were instructed to allocate the causal responsibility between themselves and the humanoid robot for a specified dyadic performance success or failure. Results show that the relative status moderated participants' self-serving biases. Participants who cooperated with a supervisor robot claimed credit for dyadic success but blamed the robot for dyadic failure, whereas participants who cooperated with a peer or subordinate robot claimed both credit for dyadic success and blame for dyadic failure. In addition, the participants' sense of responsibility mediated the relationships between relative status and responsibility attributions. As the status of the humanoid robot increased, participants felt less responsible for the task performance; consequently, they tended to attribute the outcome more to the robot and less to themselves. Finally, the participants’ power distance orientation moderated the relationships between relative status and responsibility attributions, namely that the relationships were stronger for participants with higher power distance orientation.