Risk-Taking Behavior in Human-Robot Teams: Collaboration vs. Competition

Robots are increasingly joining human teams, where collaboration and competition often coexist, yet their impact on human risk-taking remains unclear. We examined whether collaborating with or competing against a humanoid robot influences risk-taking behavior and performance in an adapted version of the Balloon Analogue Risk Task (BART) where participants interacted with a NAO robot. In a pre-registered mixed-design study, we found that social interaction increased risk behavior compared to playing alone. Competition resulted in fewer bursts and higher scores, indicating more efficient strategies, whereas collaboration raised risk without similar gains. Participants in the competition condition more frequently adopted a near-optimal strategy depending on the robot’s behavior. Additional exploratory analysis revealed that women were more risk-averse in collaboration. Our findings demonstrate that social context influences human risk-taking in shared tasks, and present an effective paradigm for studying decision-making in human-robot teams.