How Haptics Induce Social Behavior: An Exploratory Study of Public Goods Games with Tactile Sharing on the Internet Using a Behavioral Economics Approach

By integrating haptic presentation technology and certain haptic sensors into online real-time communication, we can acquire subjective information on others through the sense of touch, and use it as a new standard for our own behavior. We believe that this will lead to changes in people's altruistic behavior, including cooperative behavior. This study investigates behavioral changes during tactile sharing using a behavioral economics scheme. We adopted a sequential public goods game where several participants in a group must exchange money. The haptic condition, where the investment points that other player put can be recognized with vibrotactile sense, and the visual condition, where the investment points that other player put can be visually recognized, were prepared. 32 participants were divided into the visual-first and haptic-first groups, and the haptic or visual condition was alternated between the 1st and 2nd sessions. The results showed significant effects on the haptic experience and correlations with guilty, indicating that the tactile sharing amplified feelings of guilt and made people less likely to act uncooperatively.