Dr. Konrad Bocian awarded grant from EASP

Decades of social psychological research have demonstrated the independent importance of social conformity and appearing moral in the eyes of others. However, it is not known what is the relationship between these two independently important psychological phenomena. Hence, the following crucial question arises: how do conformity pressures influence moral judgment and perceptions of moral character? To answer this question the researchers will investigate how different sources of social pressure shape perceptions of moral character and what impact this has on social consequences. The team will conduct a behavioral experiment in a real and virtual environment, to test whether people conform to human-controlled avatars and AI-controlled agents in the same way they would do to humans and to check whether the perception of human agency drives the effect of conformity in the presence of nonhuman agents. The project may provide much-needed insight into the interplay of social conformity and moral judgments, with important implications for social influence in the digital world. It may also help to understand mind perception of robots and generally any representation of artificial intelligence in the modern digital world.

The project is conducted in collaboration with Dr. Jim Everett and Lazaros Gonidis of University of Kent.

The overarching aim of the European Association of Social Psychology (EASP) is straightforward: to promote excellence in European research in the field of social psychology.

The ‘seedcorn’ research grant awarded to Dr. Konrad Bocian by the EASP, aims to assist researchers in developing new research projects, in particular to support preliminary research which may assist the holder to subsequently obtain larger scale funding from other sources.