Machines and Mindlessness: Social Responses to Computers

Journal of Social Issues, Spring, 2000 by Clifford Nass, Youngme Moon

Because the interview questions in the reciprocity condition were much lengthier than those in the no-reciprocity condition, there was also a third condition in this experiment. In this control condition, the number of words for each question equaled the number of words in the reciprocity condition. But unlike the reciprocity questions, the control questions did not involve computer "disclosures," for example: "You are now ready for the next question in this interview. The next question is about disappointment. In this question, you will be asked about the biggest disappointments in your life. The specific question is as follows ... What has been your biggest disappointment in life?" or "The next question in this interview is about guilt. More specifically, you will be asked what you have done in your life that you feel most guilty about. The question is: What have you done in your life that you feel most guilty about?"

When we looked at the results of this experiment, we found self-disclosure tendencies to be consistent with the norms of reciprocity: Responses in the reciprocity condition were higher in intimacy (measured in terms of depth and breadth) than responses in the other two conditions. Thus, overlearned social scripts can be activated not only in a context in which they do not make "sense" but also in a context in which the "trigger" for the script makes explicit the nonhuman source of the information. [5]

Premature Cognitive Commitment With Single Exposure

As Langer (1992) points out, mindlessness is distinct from mere overlearning because the former may result from a single exposure to a stimulus, as opposed to repeated exposures. This can happen, for example, when information is given by an authority figure. In these cases, information is accepted uncritically, without attention to other aspects of the situation. To determine whether this type of "premature cognitive commitment" occurs when people interact with machines, we decided to conduct an experiment that manipulated the labeling of machine roles. Because computers might naturally be perceived as authoritative in the content they produce, we focused on a technology that does not produce content and is never thought of as an expert: a television set.

Specialist versus generalist. Would the mere labeling of a television as a "specialist" influence individuals' perception of the content it presented? To conduct this study, participants were brought into the laboratory and watched segments from news shows and situation comedies. Those who were assigned to watch the "generalist" set were told they would watch an ordinary TV that we used to show both news and entertainment shows. On top of the TV was a sign that read "News and Entertainment Television." Those who were assigned to the "specialist" condition were told that they would watch programs on two different televisions: They would watch news on a television set that we happened to use only to show news programs, and entertainment on a television set (on the other side of the room) that we happened to use only to watch entertainment programs. On top of each of these two TVs were signs that read "News Television" and "Entertainment Television," respectively.