Bullying an AI? Misbehavior toward an AI moral patient in interactive marketing

Mingxia Zhu et al.

Journal of Research in Interactive Marketing2026https://doi.org/10.1108/jrim-07-2025-0408article
AJG 1ABDC B
Weight
0.50

What the paper says

Purpose We examined how people perceive artificial intelligence (AI) as a moral patient – the target of morally wrong actions by humans. Design/methodology/approach We did a thorough literature review by integrating perspectives from the literature on marketing, management and human–AI interaction and proposed the theoretical framework. Findings Following this notion, we spotlighted a novel typology by classifying different situations in which AI is most likely to be involved in ethical issues and combined the perceived experience of AI with the moral intensity of the tasks performed by AI. Furthermore, we outlined the mechanisms that lead to people's misbehavior toward AI, by examining the extrinsic cost and intrinsic psychological cost of misbehavior. Originality/value AI is rapidly changing the way service encounters take place and transforming people's overall experience. Although interactions between humans and AI are gradually becoming part of individuals' everyday lives, people's moral consideration of AI and their ethical behavior toward it is still unclear. Therefore, our research enhances the understanding of how AI-related ethical issues.

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https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1108/jrim-07-2025-0408

Or copy a formatted citation

@article{mingxia2026,
  title        = {{Bullying an AI? Misbehavior toward an AI moral patient in interactive marketing}},
  author       = {Mingxia Zhu et al.},
  journal      = {Journal of Research in Interactive Marketing},
  year         = {2026},
  doi          = {https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1108/jrim-07-2025-0408},
}

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Evidence weight

0.50

Balanced mode · F 0.40 / M 0.15 / V 0.05 / R 0.40

F · citation impact0.50 × 0.4 = 0.20
M · momentum0.50 × 0.15 = 0.07
V · venue signal0.50 × 0.05 = 0.03
R · text relevance †0.50 × 0.4 = 0.20

† Text relevance is estimated at 0.50 on the detail page — for your query’s actual relevance score, open this paper from a search result.