https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/a3qqep/children-are-easily-peer-pressured-by-robots-study-finds

The eerie possibility of robots manipulating humans crops up in science fiction tales like Ex Machina or Battlestar Galactica. But could it happen in real life? The answer is yes, according to new research published Wednesday in Science Robotics, which found that children are particularly susceptible to robotic social influence.

A team led by Anna-Lisa Vollmer, a postdoctoral researcher at Bielefeld University’s Cluster of Excellence Cognitive Interaction Technology (CITEC), reached this conclusion by conducting a type of social conformity experiment called the Asch paradigm. Developed in the 1950s by psychologist Solomon Asch, this methodology tracks whether participants accept or defy majority opinions in a group setting, which yields insights into how peer pressure affects individuals.