Beyond Programming: Can Robots' Norm-Violating Actions Elicit Mental State Attributions?

Social perceivers often view a human agent's norm-violating behavior as diagnostic of that person's mental states, while behaviors that conform to norms are viewed as less informative. We developed a series of stimulus videos depicting a DRC-HUBO robot engaging in norm-violating and norm-conforming behaviors. We explored the hypothesis that robots' norm-violating actions may invite social perceivers to increase their mental state attributions in a similar manner as they do in humans. Surprisingly, we found that norm-conforming behaviors appear to be at least as conducive as norm-violating behaviors, and perhaps even moreso, to mental state attribution to robotic agents.