Graduate School of Engineering Science, Osaka University, Osaka, Japan.
Institute for Open and Transdisciplinary Research Initiatives, Osaka University, Osaka, Japan.
PLoS One. 2024 Jun 14;19(6):e0301769. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0301769. eCollection 2024.
Despite the overwhelming evidence of climate change and its effects on future generations, most individuals are still hesitant to make environmental changes that would especially benefit future generations. In this study, we investigate whether dialogue can influence people's altruistic behavior toward future generations of humans, and how it may be affected by participant age and the appearance of the conversation partner. We used a human, an android robot called Telenoid, and a speaker as representatives of future generations. Participants were split among an old age group and a young age group and were randomly assigned to converse with one of the aforementioned representatives. We asked the participants to play a round of the Dictator Game with the representative they were assigned, followed by an interactive conversation and another round of the Dictator Game in order to gauge their level of altruism. The results show that, on average, participants gave more money after having an interactive conversation, and that older adults tend to give more money than young adults. There were no significant differences between the three representatives. The results show that empathy might have been the most important factor in the increase in altruistic behavior for all participants.
尽管气候变化及其对后代的影响的证据确凿，但大多数人仍然不愿做出对后代特别有益的环境改变。在这项研究中，我们调查了对话是否可以影响人们对人类后代的利他行为，以及它如何受到参与者年龄和对话伙伴外观的影响。我们使用了一个人类、一个名为 Telenoid 的安卓机器人和一个扬声器作为代表来代表未来的几代人。参与者分为老年组和年轻组，并被随机分配与上述代表之一进行对话。我们要求参与者与他们分配的代表玩一轮独裁者游戏，然后进行互动对话，再玩一轮独裁者游戏，以衡量他们的利他程度。结果表明，平均而言，参与者在进行互动对话后会给出更多的钱，而且老年人比年轻人更愿意给出更多的钱。三个代表之间没有显著差异。结果表明，同理心可能是所有参与者利他行为增加的最重要因素。
