Dear colleagues,

We would like to invite you to submit your works at the special issue on "Towards Ethical Deception in HRI" in International Journal of Social Robotics https://link.springer.com/journal/12369 whose submission deadline is 19 December 2026.

The special issue explores the design and ethical implications of robot deception in human–robot interaction, emphasising autonomy, well-being, and the protection of vulnerable populations.

Read below further information, and please do not hesitate to contact us if you have any questions.

Kind regards, Alessandra Rossi

Alessandra Rossi, PhD Assistant Professor Fellow of the Higher Education Academy

Department of Electrical Engineering and Information Technologies - D.I.E.T.I. University of Naples Federico II Via Claudio, 21, 80125 - Naples, Italy

w-page: https://alessandrarossi.net e-mail address: a**************i@unina.it e-mail address: a*****i@herts.ac.uk X: @alhandra81

[image: image.png] This Topical Collection focuses on deception in human-robot interaction and its ethical implications. In particular, robot deception is a complex yet potentially beneficial strategy. Intentional behaviours such as white lies or deliberate errors can foster trust, reduce distress, and improve therapeutic or educational outcomes. Robots may strategically omit information to maintain psychological stability or simulate imperfections to appear more relatable. While deception in human–robot interaction remains ethically controversial, its applications can enhance empathy, engagement, and learning. Ultimately, the capacity for controlled, prosocial deception highlights the need to reconsider moral frameworks governing social robotics, emphasizing the potential for nuanced, emotionally adaptive interactions.

This collection aims at exploring a design-centred and ethical-centred development of robotic deceptive behaviours for a successful human-robot interaction that, at the same time, is ethically acceptable and respect the autonomy and well-being of population, specially vulnerable individuals such as older people, patients and children. This Topical Collection is open to a broad audience from academia and industry researching social robotics, robot ethics, cognitive science, psychology, and philosophy of technology. It aims to attract an interdisciplinary audience that includes academics, industry researchers, designers, and policy-makers interested in exploring the integration of deceptive techniques in designed-centred and ethics-centred HRI. By collecting works addressing disciplinary and methodological boundaries, this collection seeks to promote a shared understanding of how social robots might responsibly employ complex behavioural strategies in human-centred contexts, such as education, healthcare and service.

*Submission guidelines*

All papers must be prepared in accordance with the Submission Guidelines. Articles for this Topical Collection should be submitted via our submission system, Editorial Manager https://www.editorialmanager.com/soro/default.aspx. During the submission process you will be asked whether you are submitting to a Collection, please select "*Towards Ethical Deception in HRI*" from the dropdown menu.

Submitted papers should present original, unpublished work, relevant to one of the topics of the Topical Collection. All papers will be evaluated on the basis of relevance, significance of contribution, technical quality, scholarship, and quality of presentation by at least two reviewers. It is the policy of the journal that no submission, or substantially overlapping submission, be published or be under review at another journal or conference at any time during the review process. Final decisions on all papers are made by the Editors-in-Chief.