Evidence map›Paper›PMID 33644708›Full record

ArticleiScience2021

Heuristic thinking and altruism toward machines in people impacted by COVID-19.

Celso M de Melo, Jonathan Gratch, Frank Krueger

Abstract read
In one paragraph

Article in iScience, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 1 paper.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
1citing papers in PubMed
–field-weighted citation impact
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

1 citing paper in PubMed.

  1. Article
4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

3 authors.

Celso M de MeloCCDC U.S. Army Research Laboratory, Playa Vista, CA 90094, USA.
Jonathan GratchUSC Institute for Creative Technologies, Playa Vista, CA 90094, USA.
Frank KruegerGeorge Mason University, Fairfax, VA 22030, USA.

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

Autonomous machines are poised to become pervasive, but most treat machines differently: we are willing to violate social norms and less likely to display altruism toward machines. Here, we report an unexpected effect that those impacted by COVID-19-as measured by a post-traumatic stress disorder scale-show a sharp reduction in this difference. Participants engaged in the dictator game with humans and machines and, consistent with prior research on disasters, those impacted by COVID-19 displayed more altruism to other humans. Unexpectedly, participants impacted by COVID-19 displayed equal altruism toward human and machine partners. A mediation analysis suggests that altruism toward machines was explained by an increase in heuristic thinking-reinforcing prior theory that heuristic thinking encourages people to treat machines like people-and faith in technology-perhaps reflecting long-term consequences on how we act with machines. These findings give insight, but also raise concerns, for the design of technology.

Indexed as

Computer ScienceHuman-Computer InteractionSociology

Identifiers

PMID33644708
PMCPMC7901281

What OpenQuestion holds

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LicenceCC BY
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Registered trials

None linked

Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.