Gratitude to robot promotes prosocial behavior

Technological advancements in artificial intelligence (AI) allow robots to help humans in various life domains, and humans to react emotionally toward robots’ help. The consequences of such reactions, though, are underexplored. Here, we focused on one positive emotion, gratitude to robots, and explored its prosocial functions across three studies (N = 582). Study 1 revealed that gratitude to robot led to prosocial behavior not only toward the assisting robot but also toward other (non-helping) robots. Study 2 replicated the Study 1 findings regarding the assisting robot, and extended them to prosocial behaviors toward humans. Finally, Study 3 (a field experiment) confirmed that help by robots promotes prosocial behavior toward both the assisting robot and non-helping humans, but not toward other (non-helping) robots. Overall, these findings supported the prosocial function of robot-induced gratitude and provide novel evidence and insights for positive psychology in the AI context.