Cover not available

Article In: Pragmatics and Society: Online-First Articles

Why overtrust in social robots is inevitable

ORCiD logo with link | University of Southern Denmark
This content is being prepared for publication; it may be subject to changes.
Abstract
When robots enter our social spaces, we may view them from three different perspectives: as machines, as artefacts with specific affordances (like ‘seeing’, ‘speaking’, ‘dancing’), or as nonstandard characters, which people construct based on the features of the robot depicted, the way it is framed by others, and influenced by their own needs and dispositions. People can switch seamlessly between the three perspectives, for example, offering polite assistance in one minute and turning it off for cleaning in the next. However, when robots are construed as characters, they become social actors, and with this sociality, also expectations concerning trust apply. The fact that they participate in activities that rest on human social interaction mechanisms is likely to lead to overtrust in these characters since it evokes general pragmatic principles, like recipient design, grounding and drawing on common ground. In this paper, I present experimental evidence that it is possible to block overtrust to some extent, but that regulating people’s trust in social robots remains challenging.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.How social robots become social actors
  • 3.How people come to (over-)trust robots
  • 4.Preventing overtrust
  • 5.Conclusion and future work
  • References
References (65)
References
Allwood, Jens, Joakim Nivre, and Elisabeth Ahlsén. 1992. “On the Semantics and Pragmatics of Linguistic Feedback.” Journal of Semantics 9 (1): 1–26. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Booth, Serena, James Tompkin, Hanspeter Pfister, Jim Waldo, Krzysztof Gajos, and Radhika Nagpal. 2017. “Piggybacking Robots: Human-Robot Overtrust in University Dormitory Security.” In Proceedings of the 2017 ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction, 426–434. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Borenstein, Jason, Alan R. Wagner, and Ayanna Howard. 2018. “Overtrust of Pediatric Health-Care Robots: A Preliminary Survey of Parent Perspectives.” IEEE Robotics & Automation Magazine 25 (1): 46–54. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Breazeal, Cynthia, Kerstin Dautenhahn, and Takayuki Kanda. 2016. “Social Robotics.” In Springer Handbook of Robotics, ed. by Bruno Siciliano, and Oussama Khatib, 1935–1972. Berlin and Heidelberg, Germany: Springer. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bu, Fanjun, Kerstin Fischer, and Wendy Ju. 2025. “Making Sense of Robots in Public Spaces: A Study of Trash Barrel Robots.” ACM Transactions on Human-Robot Interaction 14 (4): 1–21. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Chang, Wan-Ling, and Selma Šabanović. 2015. “Interaction Expands Function: Social Shaping of the Therapeutic Robot PARO in a Nursing Home.” In Proceedings of the Tenth Annual ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction, 343–350. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Chun, Bohkyun, and Heather Knight. 2020. “The Robot Makers: An Ethnography of Anthropomorphism at a Robotics Company.” ACM Transactions on Human-Robot Interaction 9 (3): 1–36. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cialdini, Robert B. 2007. Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion. New York: Collins.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Clark, Eve V. 2020. “Perspective-Taking and Pretend-Play: Precursors to Figurative Language Use in Young Children.” Journal of Pragmatics 1561: 100–109. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Clark, Herbert H. 1996. Using Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
1998. “Communal Lexicons.” In Context in Language Learning and Language Understanding, ed. by Kirsten Malmkjaer, and John Williams, 63–87. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
1999. “How Do Real People Communicate with Virtual Partners?” In Proceedings of the 1999 AAAI Fall Symposium: Psychological Models of Communication in Collaborative Systems, 43–47.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
2016. “Depicting as a Method of Communication.” Psychological Review 123 (3): 324–352. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Clark, Herbert H., and Kerstin Fischer. 2023. “Social Robots as Depictions of Social Agents.” Behavioral & Brain Sciences 461: 1–65. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Clark, Herbert H., and Diana Wilkes-Gibbs. 1986. “Referring as a Collaborative Process.” Cognition 22 (1): 1–39. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Coeckelbergh, Mark. 2011. “You, Robot: On the Linguistic Construction of Artificial Others.” AI & Society 26 (1): 61–69. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
de Visser, Ewart J., Marieke M. Peeters, Malte F. Jung, Spencer Kohn, Tyler H. Shaw, Richard Pak, and Mark A. Neerincx. 2020. “Towards a Theory of Longitudinal Trust Calibration in Human-Robot Teams.” International Journal of Social Robotics 12 (2): 459–478. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Epley, Nicholas, Adam Waytz, and John T. Cacioppo. 2007. “On Seeing Human: A Three-Factor Theory of Anthropomorphism.” Psychological Review 114 (4): 864–886. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Fischer, Kerstin. 2011. “Interpersonal Variation in Understanding Robots as Social Actors.” In Proceedings of the 2011 ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction, 53–60. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2019. “Why Collaborative Robots Must Be Social (and Even Emotional) Actors.” Techné: Research in Philosophy & Technology 23 (3): 270–289. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2021. “Tracking Anthropomorphizing Behavior in Human-Robot Interaction.” ACM Transactions on Human-Robot Interaction 11 (1): Article 4.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2023. “Risk and Responsibility in Human-Robot Interaction: An Interactional Approach.” In Risk Discourse and Responsibility, ed. by Annelie Ädel, and Jan-Ola Östman, 172–189. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Fischer, Kerstin, and Matouš Jelínek. 2026. “Towards a Systematic Model of the Effects of Transparency Utterances on Calibrating Trust in Social Robots.” In Proceedings of the 21st ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction, 629–638. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Fischer, Kerstin, Katrin S. Lohan, and Kilian Foth. 2012. “Levels of Embodiment: Linguistic Analyses of Factors Influencing HRI.” In Proceedings of the Seventh Annual ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction, 463–470. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Fussell, Susan R., Sara Kiesler, Leslie D. Setlock, and Victoria Yew. 2008. “How People Anthropomorphize Robots.” In Proceedings of the 3rd ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction, 145–152. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Garcha, Diljot, Denise Geiskkovitch, Raquel Thiessen, Susan Prentice, Kerstin Fischer, and James Young. 2023. “Face to Face with a Sexist Robot: Investigating How Women React to Sexist Robot Behaviors.” International Journal of Social Robotics 15 (11): 1809–1828. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Giles, Howard, Justine Coupland, and Nicolas Coupland, eds. 1991. Contexts of Accommodation: Developments in Applied Sociolinguistics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Goffman, Erving. 1978. “Response Cries.” Language 54 (4): 787–815. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Grice, H. Paul. 1975. “Logic and Conversation.” In Syntax and Semantics 3: Speech Acts, ed. by Peter Cole and Jerry L. Morgan, 41–58. New York: Academic Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hald, Kasper. 2021. Human–Robot Trust Assessment from Physical Apprehension Signals. Aalborg: Aalborg Universitetsforlag.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ham, Jaap, Mirjam van Esch, Yvonne Limpens, Jente de Pee, John-John Cabibihan, and Shuzhi Sam Ge. 2012. “The Automaticity of Social Behavior Towards Robots: The Influence of Cognitive Load on Interpersonal Distance to Approachable Versus Less Approachable Robots.” In International Conference on Social Robotics ICSR 2012, 15–25. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hoff, Kevin A., and Masooda Bashir. 2015. “Trust in Automation: Integrating Empirical Evidence on Factors That Influence Trust.” Human Factors 57 (3): 407–434. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hutchby, Ian. 2013. Conversation and Technology: From the Telephone to the Internet. Cambridge: Polity.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Jelínek, Matouš. 2025. “Regulating Trust in Social Human–Robot Interaction.” PhD thesis, University of Southern Denmark.
Kahn, Peter H. Jr., Takayuki Kanda, Hiroshi Ishiguro, Nathan G. Freier, Rachel L. Severson, Brian T. Gill, Jolina H. Ruckert, and Solace Shen. 2012. “‘Robovie, You’ll Have to Go into the Closet Now’: Children’s Social and Moral Relationships with a Humanoid Robot.” Developmental Psychology 48 (2): 303–314. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kraljic, Tanja, Arthur G. Samuel, and Susan E. Brennan. 2008. “First Impressions and Last Resorts: How Listeners Adjust to Speaker Variability.” Psychological Science 19 (4): 332–338. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Langer, Ellen J., Arthur Blank, and Benzion Chanowitz. 1978. “The Mindlessness of Ostensibly Thoughtful Action: The Role of ‘Placebic’ Information in Interpersonal Interaction.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 36 (6): 635–642. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Levinson, Stephen C. 2020. “On the Human ‘Interaction Engine’.” In Roots of Human Sociality, ed. by Nicholas J. Enfield and Stephen C. Levinson, 39–69. London: Routledge. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lortie, Catherine L., and Matthieu J. Guitton. 2011. “Judgment of the Humanness of an Interlocutor Is in the Eye of the Beholder.” PLoS One 6 (9): e25085. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Malle, Bertram F., and Daniel Ullman. 2021. “A Multidimensional Conception and Measure of Human–Robot Trust.” In Trust in Human-Robot Interaction, ed. by Chang S. Nam, and Joseph B. Lyons, 3–25. Cambridge M.A.: Academic Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Malle, Bertram F., Kerstin Fischer, James Young, Ajung Moon, and Emily Collins. 2020. “Trust and the Discrepancy Between Expectations and Actual Capabilities of Social Robots.” In Human-Robot Interaction: Control, Analysis, and Design, ed. by Dong Zhang, and Bo Wei, 1–23. Newcastle Upon Tyne, UK: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Meltzoff, Andrew N., Rachele Brooks, Aaron P. Shon, and Rajesh P. Rao. 2010. “‘Social’ Robots Are Psychological Agents for Infants: A Test of Gaze Following.” Neural Networks 231: 966–972. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Nass, Clifford. 2004. “Etiquette Equality: Exhibitions and Expectations of Computer Politeness.” Communications of the ACM 47 (4): 35–37. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Nass, Clifford, and Youngme Moon. 2000. “Machines and Mindlessness: Social Responses to Computers.” Journal of Social Issues 56 (1): 81–103. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Onnasch, Linda, and Clara L. Hildebrandt. 2021. “Impact of Anthropomorphic Robot Design on Trust and Attention in Industrial Human–Robot Interaction.” ACM Transactions on Human-Robot Interaction 11 (1): 1–24. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Paepcke, Steffi, and Leila Takayama. 2010. “Judging a Bot by Its Cover: An Experiment on Expectation Setting for Personal Robots.” In Proceedings of Human–Robot Interaction (HRI), Osaka, 45–52. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Paetzel, Maike, and Ginevra Castellano. 2019. “Let Me Get to Know You Better: Can Interactions Help to Overcome Uncanny Feelings?” In Proceedings of the 7th International Conference on Human-Agent Interaction, 59–67. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Pelikan, Hanna R., Mathias Broth, and Leelo Keevallik. 2020. “‘Are You Sad, Cozmo?’ How Humans Make Sense of a Home Robot’s Emotion Displays.” In Proceedings of the 2020 ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction, 461–470.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Pickering, Martin J., and Simon Garrod. 2004. “Towards a Mechanistic Psychology of Dialogue.” Behavioral & Brain Sciences 271: 169–225. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Reeves, Byron. 2023. “Virtual and Real: Symbolic and Natural Experiences with Social Robots.” Behavioral & Brain Sciences 461: e43. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Riek, Laurel D. 2012. “Wizard of Oz Studies in HRI: A Systematic Review and New Reporting Guidelines.” Journal of Human-Robot Interaction 1 (1): 119–136. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Robinette, Paul, Wenchen Li, Robert Allen, Ayanna M. Howard, and Alan R. Wagner. 2016. “Overtrust of Robots in Emergency Evacuation Scenarios.” In Proceedings of the 2016 ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction, 101–108. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Rudaz, Damien, Karen Tatarian, Rebecca Stower, and Christian Licoppe. 2023. “From Inanimate Object to Agent: Impact of Pre-Beginnings on the Emergence of Greetings with a Robot.” ACM Transactions on Human-Robot Interaction 12 (3): 1–31. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Sacks, Harvey, Emanuel A. Schegloff, and Gail Jefferson. 1974. “A Simplest Systematics for the Organization of Turn-Taking for Conversation.” Language 50 (4): 696–735. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Salem, Maha, Gabriella Lakatos, Farshid Amirabdollahian, and Kerstin Dautenhahn. 2015. “Would You Trust a (Faulty) Robot? Effects of Error, Task Type and Personality on Human–Robot Cooperation and Trust.” In Proceedings of the Tenth Annual ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction, 141–148. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Schegloff, Emanuel A. 1972. “Notes on a conversational practice: Formulating place.” In Studies in Social Interaction, ed. by David Sudnow, 75–119. New York: MacMillan, The Free Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Schegloff, Emanuel A., and Harvey Sacks. 1973. “Opening Up Closings.” Semiotica 8 (4): 289–327. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Scheutz, Matthias, and Thomas Arnold. 2016. “Are We Ready for Sex Robots?” In Proceedings of the 2016 ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human–Robot Interaction, 351–358. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Thellman, Sam, Maartje De Graaf, and Tom Ziemke. 2022. “Mental State Attribution to Robots: A Systematic Review of Conceptions, Methods, and Findings.” ACM Transactions on Human–Robot Interaction 11 (4): 1–51. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Tuncer, Sylvaine, Christian Licoppe, Paul Luff, and Christian Heath. 2023. “Recipient Design in Human–Robot Interaction: The Emergent Assessment of a Robot’s Competence.” AI & Society: 1–16.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Turkle, Sherry. 2006. “Robot as Rorschach: New Complicities for Companionship.” In AAAI Workshop Technical Report WS-06, 51–60.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ullrich, Daniel, Andreas Butz, and Sarah Diefenbach. 2021. “The Development of Overtrust: An Empirical Simulation and Psychological Analysis in the Context of Human–Robot Interaction.” Frontiers in Robotics and AI 81: 554578. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Wagner, Alan R., and Paul Robinette. 2021. “An Explanation Is Not an Excuse: Trust Calibration in an Age of Transparent Robots.” In Trust in Human–Robot Interaction, ed. by Chang S. Nam, and Joseph B. Lyons, 197–208. Cambridge, M.A.: Academic Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Złotowski, Jakub, Hidenobu Sumioka, Friederike Eyssel, Suichi Nishio, Christoph Bartneck, and Hiroshi Ishiguro. 2018. “Model of Dual Anthropomorphism: The Relationship Between the Media Equation Effect and Implicit Anthropomorphism.” International Journal of Social Robotics 10 (5): 701–714. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Mobile Menu Logo with link to supplementary files background Layer 1 prag Twitter_Logo_Blue