Perceived Teammate Identity and Cooperative Behavior in Hybrid Human–Artificial Agent Teams

Amrote Seyoum Getu, Radosveta Ivanova-Stenzel, Michel Tolksdorf and Eva Wiese
Additional contact information
Amrote Seyoum Getu: TU Berlin
Radosveta Ivanova-Stenzel: TU Berlin
Michel Tolksdorf: TU Berlin
Eva Wiese: TU Berlin

No 580, Rationality and Competition Discussion Paper Series from CRC TRR 190 Rationality and Competition

Abstract: We study how perceived teammate identity shapes effort allocation in hybrid human–artificial agent teams in collaborative environments. In a real-effort online experiment and under different incentive schemes, fixed payment and team competition, participants work in a team where each team member is responsible for their own segment but can observe and intervene in teammates’ segments. Teammates are algorithmically controlled agents, framed as either artificial or human-like, with their actual behavior held constant across treatments. Participants exert approximately one-third less compensatory effort when teammates are presented with human-like cues than when they are transparently labeled as artificial, and this difference is robust across both incentive schemes. The pattern is consistent with a model in which perceived human identity reduces the non-monetary benefit of helping. The result highlights that in hybrid teams, the labeling and presentation of artificial collaborators have economically meaningful consequences for cooperative effort and the organization of team production.

Keywords: human–ai collaboration; online experiment; team incentives; teamwork; tournaments (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C91 D29 D83 D89 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026-07-21
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://rationality-and-competition.de/wp-content/ ... ussion_paper/580.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:rco:dpaper:580

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Rationality and Competition Discussion Paper Series from CRC TRR 190 Rationality and Competition
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Viviana Lalli ().