Research Ideas and Outcomes 4: e31827
doi: 10.3897/rio.4.e31827
Reviewable v1
Research Idea
Fair Proxy Communication: Using Social Robots to
Modify the Mechanisms of Implicit Social Cognition
Johanna Seibt , Christina Vestergaard
‡ Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark
Corresponding author: Johanna Seibt (filseibt@cas.au.dk )
Received: 21 Nov 2018 | Published: 27 Nov 2018
Citation: Seibt J, Vestergaard C (2018) Fair Proxy Communication: Using Social Robots to Modify the
Mechanisms of Implicit Social Cognition. Research Ideas and Outcomes 4: e31827.
https://doi.org/10.3897/rio.4.e31827
Abstract
This article introduces a new communicational format called Fair Proxy Communication.
Fair Proxy Communication is a specific communicational setting in which a teleoperated
robot is used to remove perceptual cues of implicit biases in order to increase the
perceived fairness of decision-related communications. The envisaged practical
applications of Fair Proxy Communication range from assessment communication (e.g. job
interviews at Affirmative Action Employers) to conflict mediation, negotiation and other
communication scenarios that require direct dialogue but where decision-making maybe
negatively affected by implicit social biases. The theoretical significance of Fair Proxy
Communication pertains primarily to the investigation of 'mechanisms' of implicit social
cognition in neuropsychology, but this new communicational format also raises many
research questions for the fields of organisational psychology, negotiation and conflict
research and business ethics. Fair Proxy Communication is currently investigated by an
interdisciplinary research team at Aarhus University, Denmark.
Keywords
communication, perceptual bias, discrimination, integrative social robotics, telepresence,
job interview, conflict facilitation, fairness, mediator neutrality, social cognition
‡ ‡
© Seibt J, Vestergaard C. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License
(CC BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source
are credited.