# Social Identity in Human-Agent Interaction: A Primer

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2508.16609 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2508.16609/

## Key facts

- Cited by 3 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 14 of its 149 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 12 Aug 2025.

## Builds on (most cited first, 14 of 14)

- [Man is to Computer Programmer as Woman is to Homemaker? Debiasing Word Embeddings](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1607.06520/) (2016)
- [The Rise of Social Bots](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1407.5225/) (2014)
- [Analyzing the Digital Traces of Political Manipulation: The 2016 Russian Interference Twitter Campaign](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1802.04291/) (2018)
- [Nonverbal Cues in Human-Robot Interaction: A Communication Studies Perspective](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2304.11293/) (2023)
- [What Pronouns for Pepper? A Critical Review of Gender/ing in Research](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2212.04206/) (2022)
- [Not Only WEIRD but "Uncanny"? A Systematic Review of Diversity in Human-Robot Interaction Research](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2304.08750/) (2023)
- [Silver-Tongued and Sundry: Exploring Intersectional Pronouns with ChatGPT](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2405.08238/) (2024)
- [Neither "Hear" Nor "Their": Interrogating Gender Neutrality in Robots](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2205.00183/) (2022)
- [Robot's Gendering Trouble: A Scoping Review of Gendering Humanoid Robots and its Effects on HRI](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2207.01130/) (2022)
- [Voice Over Body? Older Adults' Reactions to Robot and Voice Assistant Facilitators of Group Conversation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2212.04213/) (2022)
- [Crossing the Tepper Line: An Emerging Ontology for Describing the Dynamic Sociality of Embodied AI](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2103.08079/) (2021)
- [Coimagining the Future of Voice Assistants with Cultural Sensitivity](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.17599/) (2024)
- [From "Made In" to Mukokuseki: Exploring the Visual Perception of National Identity in Robots](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2408.16949/) (2024)
- [Bots against Bias: Critical Next Steps for Human-Robot Interaction](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2412.12542/) (2024)

## Built on by (most cited first, 3 of 3)

- [Operationalizing Perceptions of Agent Gender: Foundations and Guidelines](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2603.26682/) (2026)
- [Design Principles for Human-Agent Interaction](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2606.20630/) (2026)
- [Why did My Robot Just Change Personality? Prompting Guidelines for a Grounded Robot Persona in LLM-Based HRI](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2608.26182/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Social identity theory (SIT) and social categorization theory (SCT) are two facets of the social identity approach (SIA) to understanding social phenomena. SIT and SCT are models that describe and explain how people interact with one another socially, connecting the individual to the group through an understanding of underlying psychological mechanisms and intergroup behaviour. SIT, originally developed in the 1970s, and SCT, a later, more general offshoot, have been broadly applied to a range of social phenomena among people. The rise of increasingly social machines embedded in daily life has spurned efforts on understanding whether and how artificial agents can and do participate in SIA activities. As agents like social robots and chatbots powered by sophisticated large language models (LLMs) advance, understanding the real and potential roles of these technologies as social entities is crucial. Here, I provide a primer on SIA and extrapolate, through case studies and imagined examples, how SIT and SCT can apply to artificial social agents. I emphasize that not all human models and sub-theories will apply. I further argue that, given the emerging competence of these machines and our tendency to be taken in by them, we experts may need to don the hat of the uncanny killjoy, for our own good.