How human-chatbot interaction impairs charitable giving : the role of moral judgment

Interactions between human beings and chatbots are gradually becoming part of our everyday social lives. It is still unclear how human-chatbot interactions (HCIs), compared to human-human interactions (HHIs), influence individual morality. Building on the dual-process theory of moral judgment, a secondary data analysis (Study 1), and two scenario-based experiments (Studies 2 and 3) provide sufficient evidence that HCIs (vs. HHIs) support utilitarian judgments (vs. deontological judgments), which reduce participants' donation amount. Study 3 further demonstrates that the negative effects of HCIs can be attenuated by inducing a social-oriented (vs. task-oriented) communication style in chatbots’ verbal language designs. These findings highlight the negative impacts of HCIs on relationships among human beings and suggest a practical intervention for nonprofit organization managers.