2025年10月14日
Have you ever noticed a subtle shift in the atmosphere when a humanoid robot enters the room? This phenomenon has now received scientific validation. Dr Bingjie Deng, from the Department of Intelligent Operations and Marketing, International Business School Suzhou (IBSS), Xi'an Jiaotong-Liverpool University (XJTLU), together with her collaborators, has had their paper, Mirroring a "Mechanical Mind": Robot Presence Promotes Utilitarian Motives in Distributive Justice Judgments, published in the prestigious Journal of Business Ethics (JBE) - a Financial Times Top 50 (FT50) and CAS Q1-ranked journal. The FT50 list, compiled from feedback by business schools participating in the Financial Times’ MBA, EMBA, and Online MBA rankings, is regarded a benchmark for excellence in business and management research. The study confirms that this subtle atmospheric shift is by no means a subjective illusion, but an objective psychological phenomenon – one that can be scientifically measured and is continuously reshaping human moral decision-making.
To explore impact of robots on human decision-making, the research team designed and conducted five studies, integrating cutting-edge research methods such as eye-tracking and field experiments in real-world scenarios. Ultimately, they reached the conclusion: the mere presence of a humanoid robot makes humans more inclined to prioritise efficiency over fairness when making decisions.
In daily life, when people face distributive justice dilemmas like "how should resources be allocated?", traditional decision-making logic tends to strike a balance between equity (referring to the rationality and fairness of resource distribution) and efficiency (maximum output, i.e., maximising the output of resource utilisation). However, through extensive experimental data, the study found that the presence of a humanoid robot significantly disrupts this balance—strengthening people's preference for efficient, utilitarian outcomes, even when this comes at the expense of fairness.
What is more valuable is that the study not only confirms that "robots influence human decision-making" but also analyses the psychological mechanisms behind this effect. At the core is a psychological process called "spontaneous mentalisation" - when humans coexist with robots, the human brain unconsciously activates a mode of "inferring the robot's perspective," and unconsciously attributing to it traits such as ?"utilitarianism, logical thinking, and a focus on optimal results." During decision-making, this perceived "robotic thinking" subtly influences, people's own-choices, aligning their reasoning with that of the robot – often without their awareness. Notably, this effect is particularly prominent among individuals who are "naturally more adept at adopting others' perspectives." This finding further indicates that in human-robot interactions, robots are far more than just "tools for performing tasks"; they can also actively trigger and modulate human metacognition (i.e., the cognition and regulation of one's own thinking processes).
This phenomenon, defined by the research team as the "robot nudge effect," has an impact that extends far beyond laboratory scenarios and has reached multiple key areas of social operation. In workplace management contexts, managers need to be particularly vigilant—robots may be subtly shape team decisions regarding resource allocation, bonus distribution, and workload sharing in ways that go unnoticed. This could lead decisions to tilt excessively toward "efficiency first," while neglecting the necessary consideration of fairness, and may further trigger doubts about fairness and conflicts within the team.
From a public policy and welfare perspective, the implications are even more serious. In contexts such as social welfare distribution, legal adjudication, and public interest planning, humanoid robots could unintentionally bias officials and jurors towards "efficient handling" in their decisions whilst diminishing "fairness and justice." This subtle shift could ultimately undermine the impartiality of public policies and the inclusiveness of social welfare systems.
In the field of ethical AI design, the study also sounds an alarm and issues a clear call to action for robot designers and AI ethicists.Future robot design, it argues, must not only focus on function realisation and efficiency improvement but also establish a "context-aware" awareness. During the development process, it is essential to anticipate in advance the unintended psychological impacts that robots may have on human moral decision-making, and through technical optimisation and ethical design, reduce the potential negative effects of such impacts.
In response to this, Dr Bingjie Deng reminded:
"Next time you make a decision under the 'gaze' of a robot, please pause for a moment to reflect: Is the choice you are making right now derived from your true inner judgment, or is it influenced by the subconscious impact of that silently standing mechanical entity?"
Dr Bingjie Deng is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Intelligent Operations and Marketing, at the International Business School Suzhou, Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University. She obtained her Ph.D. degree in Information Systems from HKU Business School, The University of Hong Kong. Her primary research interests include human-computer/robot interaction, social impacts of IT, emotions, and social media. She is leading one project funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China and has been responsible for or participated in two university-level projects. She actively engages in conferences and workshops organised by the Association for Information Systems (AIS), having been invited to serve as a track co-chair, associate editor, and programme committee member. Dr. Deng also acts as a reviewer for over 10 SCI/SSCI-indexed journals and top-tier international journals. Her journal publications include papers in the?Journal of Management Information Systems,?Journal of Business Ethics, Information & Management,?Information Processing & Management,?Industrial Management & Data Systems, among others.
The Journal of Business Ethics is dedicated to publishing original articles that focus on ethical issues related to business. The journal aims to improve the human condition by promoting ethical discussion and debate in the business field. It maintains excellent rankings in both the "Ethics" and "Business" categories of Clarivate's Journal Citation Reports (JCR).
2025年10月14日