Belief in sharing the same phenomenological experience increases the likelihood of adopting the intentional stance towards a humanoid robot

Humans interpret and predict others’ behaviors by ascribing them intentions or beliefs, or in other words, by adopting the intentional stance. Since artificial agents are increasingly populating our daily environments, the question arises whether (and under which conditions) humans would apply the “human-model” to understand the behaviors of these new social agents. Thus, in a series of three experiments we tested whether embedding humans in a social interaction with a humanoid robot either displaying a human-like or machine-like behavior, would modulate their initial bias towards adopting the intentional stance. Results showed that indeed humans are more prone to adopt the intentional stance after having interacted with a more socially available and human-like robot, while no modulation of the adoption of the intentional stance emerged towards a mechanistic robot. We conclude that short experiences with humanoid robots presumably inducing a “like-me” impression and social bonding increase the likelihood of adopting the intentional stance.