Does an agent’s touch always matter? Study on virtual Midas touch, masculinity, social status, and compliance in Polish men

Traditional gender roles that define what is feminine and masculine also imply that men have higher social status than women. These stereotypes still influence how people interact with each other and with computers. Touch behaviour, essential in social interactions, is an interesting example of such social behaviours. The Midas touch effect describes a situation when a brief touch is used to influence one’s behaviour. Our study aimed to analyse the influence of virtual touch on compliance in men in a decision-making game called Ultimatum. In a series of three studies, we investigated whether social cues such as gender, stereotypical masculine/feminine appearance, and high/low social status modify compliance to offers from embodied agents. We built an immersive version of a repeated Ultimatum game in which a proposer offers how to split ten coins, and a responder accepts or rejects the offer. In study 1, men and women played with a female and a male agent. In study 2 and 3, men played with four agents each, differing in gender and levels of stereotypically seen masculinity and social status. There was no significant touch effect. Compliance was secured mostly by the value of the offer: the more generous the offer, the higher the compliance rate. We also found evidence for the perceived masculinity and social status influence. We also describe relationships between agents’ characteristics and the perception of their touch. The results are discussed in the context of social characteristics that are important in agent design and the effectiveness of social influence techniques in virtual reality. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (10.1007/s12193-020-00351-x) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.