Peer pressure can influence risk‑taking behavior and it is particularly felt during adolescence. Withartificial intelligence (AI) increasingly present in a range of everyday human contexts, includingvirtual environments, it is important to examine whether AI can have an impact on human’s decisionmaking processes and behavior.
By using the balloon analogue risk task (BART) evaluating propensityto take risk, in this study 113 adolescents’ risk‑taking behavior was measured when playing aloneand in the presence of either a robot avatar or human avatar. In the avatar conditions, participantsperformed the BART while the avatars either (1) verbally incited risk‑taking or (2) discouraged risk‑taking (experimental tasks).
Risk‑taking behavior in the BART was assessed in terms of total numberof pumps, gain and explosions. Tendency to impulsivity was also evaluated, as well as the effects ofage and gender on risky behavior. The main finding showed a significant effect of both avatars on risk‑taking tendency, with riskier behavior during incitement than discouragement conditions, the latterbeing also substantially different from the playing‑alone condition.
The results of this study open upnew questions in a very sensitive and timely topic and offer various insights into the effect of nudgingon adolescents’ behavior in virtual contexts.
Authors: Simone Bigozzi, Cinzia Di Dio, Federico Manzi, Laura Miraglia Michaela Gummerum, Massaro Davide & Antonella Marchetti
