Robots, children, and helping: do children help a robot in need?

This study examined the interactions between children and robots by observing whether children help a robot complete a task under five conditions to determine which elicited the most help. Each condition had an experimental and control group, with 20-32 children (even number of boys and girls) in each group. Visitors to a science centre located in a major Western Canadian city were invited to participate in an experiment set up at the centre. Their behaviors with a robot, a small 5 degree of freedom robot arm, were observed. Results of chi-square analyses indicated that children are most likely to help a robot after being introduced to it, X²(1) = 4.15, p = .04. This condition was the only one of five tested that demonstrated a significant increase in children's helping behaviors. These results suggest that an adult's demonstrated positive introduction to a robot impacts children's helping behaviors towards it.