Why Don't People Follow Robot Leaders? Understanding the Effects of Power Legitimacy on Compliance with Agents

Artificially Intelligent (AI) agent systems such as robots are increasingly integrated into the workplace and gaining more power in collaborating with humans. Yet studies on robot power and compliance report mixed findings. To address these inconsistencies, we introduced legitimacy as people’s psychological acceptance of power. Three preregistered experiments were conducted (N = 431). In Experiment 1 and 2, we manipulated power assignment (robot power vs. human power), and legitimacy of power (legitimate, illegitimate, no explanation) through competence and procedural fairness. The results showed that participants complied more to the legitimate robot power than illegitimate one. In Experiment 3, we examined whether perceptions of legitimacy would emerge naturally in more ecologically valid collaboration. Results of multigroup mediation model showed that the robot leader was perceived as less legitimate than the human leader, which accounted for the reduced compliance to the robot’s decisions. In all three experiments, people’s perceived social attributes of robots with power and their affective responses after the interaction were negatively affected. This study underscores the importance of legitimacy in understanding power and compliance in human-robot collaboration.