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Chatbot or humanaut? How the source of advice impacts prosocial behavior

Author

Listed:
  • Jobu Babin, J.
  • Chauhan, Haritima S.

Abstract

This paper explores how the source of advice – human or generative AI (genAI) – relates to behavior in three classic bargaining games commonly used to assess prosociality and cooperative welfare gains. Utilizing a novel experiment, we show that the source of advice matters. While both sources of advice increased prosociality, players preferred human advice over that from genAI and were more willing to pay for it. Prosocial behavior was more prevalent when players received human advice — advice increased the probability of adopting the Pareto-optimal strategy by 14% in the stag hunt and boosted contributions of 19% to the public goods game and 8% in dictator. Leveraging language AI advances, we demonstrate that the advice corpora differ significantly. Humans were more objective, specific, intuitive, and norm-oriented; genAI offered guided reasoning and targeted concepts of risk and strategy. Entities adopting genAI technologies should balance AI agency with human oversight and judgment, mindful of behavioral salience and moral credibility.

Suggested Citation

  • Jobu Babin, J. & Chauhan, Haritima S., 2026. "Chatbot or humanaut? How the source of advice impacts prosocial behavior," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 121(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:soceco:v:121:y:2026:i:c:s2214804326000017
    DOI: 10.1016/j.socec.2026.102509
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    JEL classification:

    • C9 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments
    • D83 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Search; Learning; Information and Knowledge; Communication; Belief; Unawareness
    • D90 - Microeconomics - - Micro-Based Behavioral Economics - - - General
    • O39 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - Other

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