Moral conformity in a digital world: Human and nonhuman agents as a source of social pressure for judgments of moral character

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cris.lastimport.scopus2025-08-30T03:16:13Z
dc.abstract.enCould judgments about others’ moral character be changed under group pressure produced by human and virtual agents? In Study 1 (N = 103), participants first judged targets’ moral character privately and two weeks later in the presence of real humans. Analysis of how many times participants changed their private moral judgments under group pressure showed that moral conformity occurred, on average, 43% of the time. In Study 2 (N = 138), we extended this using Virtual Reality, where group pressure was produced either by avatars allegedly controlled by humans or AI. While replicating the effect of moral conformity (at 28% of the time), we find that the moral conformity for the human and AI-controlled avatars did not differ. Our results suggest that human and nonhuman groups shape moral character judgments in both the physical and virtual worlds, shedding new light on the potential social consequences of moral conformity in the modern digital world.
dc.affiliationSchool of Psychology in Sopot
dc.affiliationInstytut Psychologii
dc.contributor.authorBocian, Konrad
dc.contributor.authorGonidis, Lazaros
dc.contributor.authorEverett, Jim A. C.
dc.contributor.editorSĂłnia Brito-Costa
dc.date.access2024-02-15
dc.date.accessioned2024-02-17T12:05:18Z
dc.date.available2024-02-17T12:05:18Z
dc.date.created2024-01-23
dc.date.issued2024-02-15
dc.description.abstract<jats:p>Could judgments about others’ moral character be changed under group pressure produced by human and virtual agents? In Study 1 (<jats:italic>N</jats:italic> = 103), participants first judged targets’ moral character privately and two weeks later in the presence of real humans. Analysis of how many times participants changed their private moral judgments under group pressure showed that moral conformity occurred, on average, 43% of the time. In Study 2 (<jats:italic>N</jats:italic> = 138), we extended this using Virtual Reality, where group pressure was produced either by avatars allegedly controlled by humans or AI. While replicating the effect of moral conformity (at 28% of the time), we find that the moral conformity for the human and AI-controlled avatars did not differ. Our results suggest that human and nonhuman groups shape moral character judgments in both the physical and virtual worlds, shedding new light on the potential social consequences of moral conformity in the modern digital world.</jats:p>
dc.description.accesstimeat_publication
dc.description.grantnumberThe European Association of Social Psychology Seedcorn grant
dc.description.granttitleThe European Association of Social Psychology Seedcorn Grant
dc.description.issue2
dc.description.physical1-21
dc.description.versionfinal_published
dc.description.volume19
dc.identifier.doi10.1371/journal.pone.0298293
dc.identifier.issn1932-6203
dc.identifier.urihttps://share.swps.edu.pl/handle/swps/488
dc.identifier.weblinkhttps://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0298293
dc.languageen
dc.pbn.affiliationpsychologia
dc.rightsCC-BY
dc.rights.questionYes_rights
dc.share.articleOPEN_JOURNAL
dc.swps.sciencecloudsend
dc.titleMoral conformity in a digital world: Human and nonhuman agents as a source of social pressure for judgments of moral character
dc.title.journalPLoS ONE
dc.typeJournalArticle
dspace.entity.typeArticle