Fair Proxy Communication: Using Social Robots to Modify the Mechanisms of Implicit Social Cognition

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.