AUTHOR=Upadhyaya Nitish , Galizzi Matteo M. 

TITLE=In bot we trust? Personality traits and reciprocity in human-bot trust games

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Behavioral Economics

VOLUME=2

YEAR=2023

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/behavioral-economics/articles/10.3389/frbhe.2023.1164259

DOI=10.3389/frbhe.2023.1164259

ISSN=2813-5296

ABSTRACT=<p>People are increasingly interacting with forms of artificial intelligence (AI). It is crucial to understand whether accepted evidence for human-human reciprocity holds true for human-bot interactions. In a pre-registered online experiment (<italic>N</italic> = 539) we first replicate recent studies, finding that the identity of a player's counterpart in a one-shot binary Trust Game has a significant effect on the rate of reciprocity, with bot counterparts receiving lower levels of returned amounts than human counterparts. We then explore whether individual differences in a player's personality traits—in particular <italic>Agreeableness, Extraversion, Honesty-Humility</italic> and <italic>Openness</italic>—moderate the effect of the identity of the player's counterpart on the rate of reciprocity. In line with literature on human-human interactions, participants exhibiting higher levels of <italic>Honesty-Humility</italic>, and to a lesser extent <italic>Agreeableness</italic>, are found to reciprocate more, regardless of the identity of their counterpart. No personality trait, however, moderates the effect of interacting with a bot. Finally, we consider whether general attitudes to AI affect the reciprocity but find no significant relationship.</p>