# If They Disagree, Will You Conform? Exploring the Role of Robots' Value Awareness in a Decision-Making Task

- Authors: Giulia Pusceddu, Giulio Antonio Abbo, Francesco Rea, Tony Belpaeme and Alessandra Sciutti
- Date: 2025-10-27
- Type: journal
- Venue: Interaction Studies (IS)
- DOI: https://doi.org/10.1075/is.25030.pus
- Supplementary material: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.19555316
- ResearchGate: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/403443489_If_they_disagree_will_you_conform_Exploring_the_role_of_robots'_value_awareness_in_a_decision-making_task
- PDF: https://giubots.net/publications/if-they-disagree/if-they-disagree.pdf
- Research line: [VALAWAI](https://giubots.net/research/valawai/)
- URL: https://giubots.net/publications/if-they-disagree/


## TL;DR

Two identical robots, one “value-aware” and the other not, and one human. A set of images to be labelled. The humans take longer to confirm their choices when both robots disagree with them. This is just one of the findings of this study on value awareness in group settings by Giulia Pusceddu; you can read more about it in her blog post.


Two identical robots, one "value-aware" and the other not, and one human. A set of images to be labelled. The humans take longer to confirm their choices when both robots disagree with them. This is just one of the findings of this study on value awareness in group settings by Giulia Pusceddu; you can read more about it in her [blog post](https://www.growkudos.com/publications/10.1075%25252Fis.25030.pus/reader).

## Publications in the research line "VALAWAI"

- [Users' Perspectives on Value Awareness in Social Robots](https://giubots.net/publications/users-perspectives-value/index.md)
- [Values in Social Robots: Implementing Inclusive, Value-Aware Human-Robot Interactions](https://giubots.net/publications/values-social-robots/index.md)
- [If They Disagree, Will You Conform? Exploring the Role of Robots' Value Awareness in a Decision-Making Task](https://giubots.net/publications/if-they-disagree/index.md)

## Abstract

This study investigates whether the opinions of robotic agents can influence human decision-making when robots display value awareness (i.e., the capability of understanding human preferences and prioritizing them in decision-making). We designed an experiment in which participants interacted with two Furhat robots - one programmed to be Value-Aware and the other Non-Value-Aware - during a labeling task for images representing human values. Results indicate that participants distinguished the Value-Aware robot from the Non-Value-Aware one. Although their explicit choices did not indicate a clear preference for one robot over the other, participants directed their gaze more toward the Value-Aware robot. Additionally, the Value-Aware robot was perceived as more loyal, suggesting that value awareness in a social robot may enhance its perceived commitment to the group. Finally, when both robots disagreed with the participant, conformity occurred in about one out of four trials, and participants took longer to confirm their responses, suggesting that two robots expressing dissent may introduce hesitation in decision-making. On one hand, this highlights the potential risk that robots, if misused, could manipulate users for unethical purposes. On the other hand, it reinforces the idea that social robots could encourage reflection in ambiguous situations and help users avoid scams.

## How to cite

Giulia Pusceddu, Giulio Antonio Abbo, Francesco Rea, Tony Belpaeme, and Alessandra Sciutti. 2025. If they disagree, will you conform? Exploring the role of robots’ value awareness in a decision-making task. Interaction Studies 26, 3 (2025), 477–505. DOI:https://doi.org/10.1075/is.25030.pus

```bibtex
@article{pusceddu2025if-they-disagree,
  title={If they disagree, will you conform? Exploring the role of robots’ value awareness in a decision-making task},
  author={Pusceddu, Giulia and Abbo, Giulio Antonio and Rea, Francesco and Belpaeme, Tony and Sciutti, Alessandra},
  journal={Interaction Studies},
  volume={26},
  number={3},
  pages={477--505},
  year={2025},
  publisher={John Benjamins Publishing Company Amsterdam/Philadelphia},
  doi={https://doi.org/10.1075/is.25030.pus},
}
```