As robots threaten our jobs and identity, people seek comfort in unequal social structures

As the rapid advancement of robotics changes the modern workplace, a new psychological phenomenon has emerged where people who feel threatened by machines tend to favor strict social hierarchies as a way to regain a sense of control. A recent paper published in the European Journal of Social Psychology provides evidence that exposure to highly capable robots reduces an individual’s feeling of personal mastery, which in turn increases their desire for well-defined social rankings.

The integration of robots and artificial intelligence into daily life brings both technological benefits and psychological challenges. Scientists note that this transition poses a unique type of threat to human beings on multiple fronts.

“As robots become increasingly involved in human society, people are concerned about their jobs being replaced and begin to question the clarity of human identity,” said study author Feng Yu, a professor in the Department of Psychology at Wuhan University. “In other words, the rise of robots poses both realistic and identity-based threats, profoundly disrupting individuals’ need for control.”

To understand how people navigate this anxiety, the scientists drew upon the concept of compensatory control. This psychological framework suggests that when people feel they are losing control over their own lives, they look for external sources of structure to make the world feel predictable again.

“In response, we became interested in how people compensate for this unique form of loss of control when faced with robot threats,” Yu explained. “Drawing on compensatory control theory, we proposed that people tend to prefer hierarchical structures to restore the sense of control threatened by robot threats.”

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Social hierarchies offer exactly this type of psychological structure. A hierarchy is a system where people or groups are ranked one above the other according to status or authority. In a strict hierarchy, roles and power dynamics are explicitly defined, making human behavior highly predictable.

“Our perceptions of robot threats can, quietly and without our awareness, nudge us toward preferring more hierarchical and unequal arrangements,” Yu said. “This finding suggests that robotics may have an imperceptible power to reshape social structures. However, this effect is not inevitable. When the social system is perceived as capable of managing robots effectively, this negative compensatory effect is weakened.”

To test these ideas, the researchers conducted three separate experiments. The first experiment included 270 Chinese participants. The scientists wanted to see if reading about the threat of robots would lower the participants’ sense of personal control and subsequently increase their preference for hierarchy.

Participants were randomly divided into two groups. One group read a customized science news article titled “Robots: Replacing Human Labor?” which detailed how robots might take over human jobs. The second group read a different article titled “Robots: Just a Fad?” which minimized the likelihood of job displacement.

After reading the articles, participants answered a series of questionnaire items to measure their perception of the robotic threat. They also completed a 12-item survey designed to evaluate their sense of personal control. Finally, they filled out a six-item measure to assess their preference for strict social hierarchies.

The results from the first experiment matched the initial predictions. Participants who read the threatening article reported a significantly lower sense of personal control compared to those who read the dismissive article. This reduced sense of mastery was directly associated with a stronger preference for hierarchical structures.

The second experiment aimed to find stronger proof that a loss of personal control was the actual cause of this preference for hierarchy. The sample consisted of 400 Chinese participants. The researchers used a study design that manipulated both the perceived threat of robots and the participants’ feelings of personal control at the same time.

Participants again read one of the two news articles from the first study to induce either a high or low sense of robotic threat. Then, they completed a specific writing task. Half of the participants were asked to write about a personal memory where they felt a high degree of control over a situation, while the other half wrote about a neutral, everyday routine.

After the writing exercise, the participants reported their preferences for social hierarchies. The researchers factored in various personality traits, such as openness and agreeableness, to ensure their measurements were precise. They found that when participants were guided to feel a strong sense of personal control through the writing task, the threat of robots no longer increased their desire for strict rankings.

The drive to support hierarchical systems only appeared when a person’s sense of control was left unmanaged in the neutral writing condition. This interaction provides evidence that personal control acts as a psychological bridge between technological threats and a preference for inequality.

The third experiment explored whether the perceived orderliness of society could act as a buffer against these technological anxieties. The researchers recruited 458 Chinese participants for this phase. Instead of reading news articles, the participants watched curated online videos to manipulate their perception of robots.

In the high-threat condition, participants watched a video showing highly advanced robots successfully performing complex tasks like moving boxes, opening doors, and engaging in conversations. In the low-threat condition, the video showed robots struggling to complete these same basic tasks. This visual method allowed the researchers to see if simply observing robotic capabilities could trigger the same psychological responses as reading about them.

Next, the researchers manipulated the participants’ perceptions of social order by having them read fabricated essays. One essay described a highly ordered world with robust laws and regulations perfectly equipped to handle ethical challenges related to artificial intelligence. The second essay described a disordered, unprepared world lacking adequate legal frameworks.

Following these tasks, participants once again rated their preference for workplace hierarchies. The data showed that the orderliness of the social system completely altered the participants’ reactions. In the disordered society condition, observing highly capable robots significantly increased the participants’ preference for hierarchy.

However, in the ordered society condition, the robotic threat had no significant impact on their desire for strict social rankings.

“In Study 3, we found that when the social system was perceived as orderly, the effect of perceived robot threat on hierarchical preference was no longer significant,” Yu said. “This result suggests that to avoid the negative psychological consequences of robot development, an important step is to establish a stable and reliable system of robot governance. Only by anchoring technology within an ethical and regulatory framework can we ensure its healthy and beneficial development.”

While these findings provide new insights into human psychology, there are a few limitations to consider. The experiments focused specifically on physical robots, but participants might have mentally merged this concept with broad artificial intelligence algorithms.

“There are two important limitations worth noting,” Yu explained. “First, our research may have inadvertently conflated robots with artificial intelligence. Both robots and AI can elicit similar realistic and identity-based threats, but they also differ in their focal points.”

Future research should examine whether the fear of a computer program taking over cognitive tasks produces the same desire for hierarchy as a physical robot taking over manual labor. Additionally, the researchers point out that their data comes exclusively from Eastern populations.

“Second, there is the limitation of cultural sensitivity,” Yu said. “All of our participants were from China, a culture that strongly emphasizes power distance and has a relatively high acceptance of unequal hierarchical structures. Thus, it remains unknown whether the above effects would take a different form in Western societies, which place greater emphasis on egalitarianism.”

Because cultural backgrounds shape how people view social rankings, future studies should include Western participants to determine if this tendency is a universal human trait. Another area for future exploration involves how social class and wealth might influence the ways people cope with the growing presence of advanced machinery. The research team plans to continue exploring these topics.

“Our lab has long focused on the moral psychology of artificial intelligence,” Yu said. “We believe that, in the age of intelligence, research should pay special attention to two meta-questions: how people perceive artificial intelligence, and how artificial intelligence affects people.”

“The present study is one of our explorations into the latter question,” Yu continued. “In the future, our laboratory will continue to deepen our work in this area and further investigate the psychological and behavioral adaptations accompanying the intelligent transformation of society.”

Understanding these mental adaptations will be vital as technology continues to change the workplace and society at large. The psychological need for order might influence how organizations integrate automated systems in the coming years.

“We would like to emphasize that social psychology plays an indispensable role in the current era of rapid technological advancement,” Yu said. “As society becomes increasingly intelligent, we ought to pay more attention to the adaptive psychological dynamics that arise from this process, including not only direct reactions to AI but also indirect compensatory strategies.”

The study, “Perceived Robot Threat Enhances Preference for Hierarchy,” was authored by Liying Xu, Yijun Zhao, Xiaofan Zhou, Fu Bai, and Feng Yu.