research-article

Does Trait Loneliness Predict Rejection of Social Robots?: The Role of Reduced Attributions of Unique Humanness (Exploring the Effect of Trait Loneliness on Anthropomorphism and Acceptance of Social Robots)

Authors:

Kaiping PengAuthors Info & Claims

HRI '20: Proceedings of the 2020 ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction

Pages 271 - 280

https://doi.org/10.1145/3319502.3374777

Published: 09 March 2020 Publication History

Abstract

Since chronic loneliness is both a painful individual experience and an increasingly serious social problem, robot companions have emerged as a result of robotization of social work to confront this issue. We foresee that social robots will become pervasive in the near future. Thus, it is crucial to pinpoint the relationship between chronic experiences of loneliness (i.e., trait loneliness) and both anthropomorphism and acceptance of such artificial intelligent agents. Previous research demonstrated that experimentally induced state loneliness increases anthropomorphic inferences about nonhuman agents such as pets. However, in the present research we found that trait (vs. state) loneliness - a permanent personality disposition that is not easily relieved (vs. transitory experiences caused by circumstance, and easily relieved) - reduced participants' anthropomorphic tendencies and acceptance of a social robot (regardless of the form: a picture of the robot, an on-site robot, or direct interaction with the robot). In particular, believing that the robot lacks good "unique humanness" traits (i.e., Humble, Thorough, Organized, Broadminded, and Polite) is one reason why dispositionally lonely participants are less likely to anthropomorphize a robot, which further prompts reduced acceptance of it. This finding suggests that unique humanness, exemplifying secondary emotions, is vital, not only in interpersonal contexts, but in establishing connections with social robots.

Supplementary Material

ZIP File (fp1044aux.docx.zip)

Download
60.05 KB

MP4 File (p271-li.mp4)

Download
13.82 MB

References

[1]

Aaker, D.A., Stayman, D.M. and Hagerty, M.R. 1986. Warmth in Advertising: Measurement, Impact, and Sequence Effects. Journal of Consumer Research. 12, 4 (Mar. 1986), 365.

[2]

Aaker, J., Vohs, K.D. and Mogilner, C. 2010. Nonprofits Are Seen as Warm and For-Profits as Competent: Firm Stereotypes Matter. Journal of Consumer Research. 37, 2 (Aug. 2010), 224--237.

[3]

Aaker, J.L., Garbinsky, E.N. and Vohs, K.D. 2012. Cultivating admiration in brands: Warmth, competence, and landing in the "golden quadrant." Journal of Consumer Psychology. 22, 2 (2012), 191--194.

[4]

Bartneck, C., Kulic, D. and Croft, E. 2009. Measuring the anthropomorphism, animacy, likeability, perceived intelligence, and perceived safety of robots. International Journal of Social Robotics. 1, 2 (2009), 71--81.

[5]

Bartz, J.A., Tchalova, K. and Fenerci, C. 2016. Reminders of Social Connection Can Attenuate Anthropomorphism: A Replication and Extension of Epley, Akalis, Waytz, and Cacioppo (2008). Psychological Science. 27, 12 (2016), 1644--1650.

[6]

Cacioppo, J.T. and Cacioppo, S. 2014. Social Relationships and Health: The Toxic Effects of Perceived Social Isolation: Social Relationships and Health. Social and Personality Psychology Compass. 8, 2 (Feb. 2014), 58--72.

[7]

Cacioppo, J.T. and Cacioppo, S. 2018. The Growing Probelm of Loneliness. The Lancet. 391, 10119 (2018), 426.

[8]

Cacioppo, J.T., Cacioppo, S. and Boomsma, D.I. 2014. Evolutionary mechanisms for loneliness. Cognition and Emotion. 28, 1 (Jan. 2014), 3--21.

[9]

Cacioppo, J.T., Hawkley, L.C. and Berntson, G.G. 2003. The Anatomy of Loneliness. Current Directions in Psychological Science. 12, 3 (2003), 71--74.

[10]

Cacioppo, J.T. and Patrick, W. 2008. Loneliness: Human nature and the need for social connection. W W Norton & Co.

[11]

Cacioppo, S., Balogh, S. and Cacioppo, J.T. 2015. Implicit attention to negative social, in contrast to nonsocial, words in the Stroop task differs between individuals high and low in loneliness: Evidence from event-related brain microstates. Cortex. 70, (Sep. 2015), 213--233.

[12]

Cacioppo, S., Grippo, A.J., London, S., Goossens, L. and Cacioppo, J.T. 2015. Loneliness: Clinical Import and Interventions. Perspectives on Psychological Science. 10, 2 (Mar. 2015), 238--249.

[13]

Carpinella, C.M., Wyman, A.B., Perez, M.A. and Stroessner, S.J. 2017. The Robotic Social Attributes Scale (RoSAS): Development and Validation. Proceedings of the 2017 ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction - HRI '17 (Vienna, Austria, 2017), 254--262.

Digital Library

[14]

Cuddy, A.J.C., Fiske, S.T. and Glick, P. 2008. Warmth and Competence as Universal Dimensions of Social Perception: The Stereotype Content Model and the BIAS Map. Advances in Experimental Social Psychology. Elsevier. 61--149.

[15]

Cuddy, A.J.C., Glick, P. and Beninger, A. 2011. The dynamics of warmth and competence judgments, and their outcomes in organizations. Research in Organizational Behavior. 31, (Jan. 2011), 73--98.

[16]

Cullen, H., Kanai, R., Bahrami, B. and Rees, G. 2014. Individual differences in anthropomorphic attributions and human brain structure. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience. 9, 9 (2014), 1276--1280.

[17]

Demoulin, S., Leyens, J., Paladino, M., Rodriguez-Torres, R., Rodriguez-Perez, A. and Dovidio, J. 2004. Dimensions of "uniquely" and "non-uniquely" human emotions. Cognition & Emotion. 18, 1 (Jan. 2004), 71--96.

[18]

Duck, S. 1992. Human relations. Sage Publications.

[19]

Epley, N., Akalis, S., Waytz, A. and Cacioppo, J.T. 2008. Creating Social Connection through Inferential Reproduction: Loneliness and Perceived Agency in Gadgets, Gods, and Greyhounds. Psychological Science. 19, 2 (2008), 114--120.

[20]

Epley, N., Schroeder, J. and Waytz, A. 2013. Motivated Mind Perception: Treating Pets as People and People as Animals. Objectification and (de)humanization: 60th Nebraska Symposium on Motivation. Springer.

[21]

Epley, N., Waytz, A., Akalis, S. and Cacioppo, J.T. 2008. When we need a human: Motivational determinants of anthropomorphism. Social cognition. 26, 2 (2008), 143.

[22]

Epley, N., Waytz, A. and Cacioppo, J.T. 2007. On seeing human: A three-factor theory of anthropomorphism. Psychological Review. 114, 4 (2007), 864--886.

[23]

Eyssel, F., Kuchenbrandt, D. and Bobinger, S. 2011. Effects of anticipated human-robot interaction and predictability of robot behavior on perceptions of anthropomorphism. Human-Robot Interaction (HRI), 2011 6th ACM/IEEE International Conference on (2011), 61--67.

[24]

Ferrer, G., Garrell, A. and Sanfeliu, A. 2013. Robot companion: A social-force based approach with human awareness-navigation in crowded environments. 2013 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (Tokyo, Nov. 2013), 1688--1694.

[25]

Fiske, S.T., Cuddy, A.J.C. and Glick, P. 2007. Universal dimensions of social cognition: warmth and competence. Trends in Cognitive Sciences. 11, 2 (Feb. 2007), 77--83.

[26]

Fiske, S.T., Cuddy, A.J.C., Glick, P. and Xu, J. 2002. A model of (often mixed) stereotype content: Competence and warmth respectively follow from perceived status and competition. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 82, 6 (Jun. 2002), 878--902.

[27]

Fiske, S.T., Xu, J., Cuddy, A.C. and Glick, P. 1999. (Dis)respecting versus (Dis)liking: Status and Interdependence Predict Ambivalent Stereotypes of Competence and Warmth. Journal of Social Issues. 55, 3 (1999), 473--489.

[28]

Fournier, S. and Alvarez, C. 2012. Brands as relationship partners: Warmth, competence, and in-between. Journal of Consumer Psychology. 22, 2 (Apr. 2012), 177--185.

[29]

Garrell, A. and Sanfeliu, A. 2012. Cooperative social robots to accompany groups of people. The International Journal of Robotics Research. 31, 13 (Nov. 2012), 1675--1701.

Digital Library

[30]

Gaunt, R., Leyens, J.-P. and Demoulin, S. 2002. Intergroup relations and the attribution of emotions: control over memory for secondary emotions associated with the ingroup and outgroup. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology. 38, 5 (Sep. 2002), 508--514.

[31]

Gross, H.-M., Mueller, S., Schroeter, C., Volkhardt, M., Scheidig, A., Debes, K., Richter, K. and Doering, N. 2015. Robot companion for domestic health assistance: Implementation, test and case study under everyday conditions in private apartments. 2015 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS) (Hamburg, Germany, Sep. 2015), 5992--5999.

[32]

Haslam, N. 2006. Dehumanization: An Integrative Review. Personality and Social Psychology Review. 10, 3 (Aug. 2006), 252--264.

[33]

Haslam, N., Bastian, B. and Bissett, M. 2004. Essentialist Beliefs about Personality and Their Implications. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin. 30, 12 (Dec. 2004), 1661--1673.

[34]

Haslam, N., Bastian, B., Laham, S. and Loughnan, S. 2012. Humanness, dehumanization, and moral psychology. Humanness, Dehumanization, and Moral Psychology.

[35]

Haslam, N., Loughnan, S., Kashima, Y. and Bain, P. 2008. Attributing and denying humanness to others. European Review of Social Psychology. 19, 1 (Sep. 2008), 55--85.

[36]

Hawkley, L.C. and Cacioppo, J.T. 2010. Loneliness Matters: A Theoretical and Empirical Review of Consequences and Mechanisms. Annals of Behavioral Medicine. 40, 2 (Oct. 2010), 218--227.

[37]

Hawkley, L.C., Preacher, K.J. and Cacioppo, J.T. 2007. Multilevel modeling of social interactions and mood in lonely and socially connected indivi- duals: The MacArthur social neuroscience studies. Oxford handbook of methods in positive psychology. Oxford University Press. 559--575.

[38]

Hayes, A.F. 2013. Introduction to mediation, moderation, and conditional process analysis: a regression-based approach. The Guilford Press.

[39]

Hector-Taylor, L. and Adams, P. 1996. State versus Trait Loneliness in Elderly New Zealanders. Psychological Reports. 78, 3_suppl (Jun. 1996), 1329--1330.

[40]

Lee, K.M., Jung, Y., Kim, J. and Kim, S.R. 2006. Are physically embodied social agents better than disembodied social agents?: The effects of physical embodiment, tactile interaction, and people's loneliness in human--robot interaction. International Journal of Human-Computer Studies. 64, 10 (Oct. 2006), 962--973.

Digital Library

[41]

Leite, I., Martinho, C. and Paiva, A. 2013. Social Robots for Long-Term Interaction: A Survey. International Journal of Social Robotics. 5, 2 (Apr. 2013), 291--308.

[42]

Loughnan, S. and Haslam, N. 2007. Animals and Androids: Implicit Associations Between Social Categories and Nonhumans. Psychological Science. 18, 2 (Feb. 2007), 116--121.

[43]

Moyle, W., Cooke, M., Beattie, E., Jones, C., Klein, B., Cook, G. and Gray, C. 2013. Exploring the effect of companion robots on emotional expression in older adults with dementia: a pilot randomized controlled trial. Journal of Gerontological Nursing. 39, 5 (2013), 46--53.

[44]

Nurmi, J.-E., Toivonen, S., Salmela-aro, K. and Eronen, S. 1997. Social Strategies and Loneliness. The Journal of Social Psychology. 137, 6 (Dec. 1997), 764--777.

[45]

Reich, N. and Eyssel, F. 2013. Attitudes towards service robots in domestic environments: The role of personality characteristics, individual interests, and demographic variables. Paladyn, Journal of Behavioral Robotics. 4, 2 (Jan. 2013).

[46]

Robinson, H., MacDonald, B. and Broadbent, E. 2015. Physiological effects of a companion robot on blood pressure of older people in residential care facility: A pilot study: Physiological effects of a companion robot. Australasian Journal on Ageing. 34, 1 (Mar. 2015), 27--32.

[47]

Robinson, H., MacDonald, B., Kerse, N. and Broadbent, E. 2013. The Psychosocial Effects of a Companion Robot: A Randomized Controlled Trial. Journal of the American Medical Directors Association. 14, 9 (Sep. 2013), 661--667.

[48]

Rook, K.S. 1987. Social Support Versus Companionship: Effects on Life Stress, Loneliness, and Evaluations by Others. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 52, 6 (1987), 1132--1147.

[49]

Rosenberg, E.L. 1998. Levels of Analysis and the Organization of Affect. Review of General Psychology. 2, 3 (1998), 247--270.

[50]

Rothbart, M. and Taylor, M. 1992. Category labels and social reality: Do we view social categories as natural kinds? Language, interaction and social cognition. Sage Publications, Inc. 11--36.

[51]

Russell, D. 1996. UCLA Loneliness Scale (Version 3): Reliability, validity, and factor structure. Journal of Personality Assessment. 66, (1996), 20--40.

[52]

Schroeter, C., Mueller, S., Volkhardt, M., Einhorn, E., Huijnen, C., Heuvel, H. van den, Berlo, A. van, Bley, A. and Gross, H.- 2013. Realization and user evaluation of a companion robot for people with mild cognitive impairments. 2013 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (May 2013), 1153--1159.

[53]

Sheehan, J.J. and Sosna, M. 1991. The boundaries of humanity: Humans, animals, machines. University of California Press.

[54]

Shin, H.I. and Kim, J. 2018. My computer is more thoughtful than you: Loneliness, anthropomorphism and dehumanization. Current Psychology. (Aug. 2018).

[55]

Solís, M. 2015. The dilemma of combining positive and negative items in scales. Psicothema. 27.2 (May 2015), 192--199.

[56]

Sonderen, E. van, Sanderman, R. and Coyne, J.C. 2013. Ineffectiveness of Reverse Wording of Questionnaire Items: Let's Learn from Cows in the Rain. PLoS ONE. 8, 7 (Jul. 2013), e68967.

[57]

Veevers, J.E. 1985. The Social Meanings of Pets: Alternative Roles for Companion Animals. Marriage & Family Review. 8, 3--4 (1985), 11--30.

[58]

Wang, W. 2017. Smartphones as Social Actors? Social dispositional factors in assessing anthropomorphism. Computers in Human Behavior. 68, (Mar. 2017), 334--344.

Digital Library

[59]

Waytz, A., Cacioppo, J. and Epley, N. 2010. Who Sees Human?: The Stability and Importance of Individual Differences in Anthropomorphism. Perspectives on Psychological Science. 5, 3 (May 2010), 219--232.

[60]

Waytz, A. and Epley, N. 2012. Social connection enables dehumanization. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology. 48, 1 (Jan. 2012), 70--76.

[61]

Waytz, A., Epley, N. and Cacioppo, J.T. 2010. Social Cognition Unbound: Insights Into Anthropomorphism and Dehumanization. Current Directions in Psychological Science. 19, 1 (Feb. 2010), 58--62.

[62]

Weijters, B., Geuens, M. and Schillewaert, N. 2009. The proximity effect: The role of inter-item distance on reverse-item bias. International Journal of Research in Marketing. 26, 1 (Mar. 2009), 2--12.

[63]

Weiss, A. and Bartneck, C. 2015. Meta analysis of the usage of the Godspeed Questionnaire Series. 2015 24th IEEE International Symposium on Robot and Human Interactive Communication (RO-MAN) (Aug. 2015), 381--388.

[64]

Zlotowski, J., Proudfoot, D., Yogeeswaran, K. and Bartneck, C. 2015. Anthropomorphism: Opportunities and Challenges in Human--Robot Interaction. International Journal of Social Robotics. 7, 3 (Jun. 2015), 347--360.

[65]

Zlotowski, J., Strasser, E. and Bartneck, C. 2014. Dimensions of anthropomorphism: from humanness to humanlikeness. (2014), 66--73.

Cited By

Zhou JPorat Tvan Zalk N(2024)Humans Mindlessly Treat AI Virtual Agents as Social Beings, but This Tendency Diminishes Among the Young: Evidence From a Cyberball ExperimentHuman Behavior and Emerging Technologies10.1155/2024/88649092024:1Online publication date: 27-Sep-2024
https://doi.org/10.1155/2024/8864909
Xiang LPark H(2024)Influence of mortality threats on anthropomorphized brand attitude: role of control and connectedness motivesJournal of Product & Brand Management10.1108/JPBM-05-2023-4528Online publication date: 19-Nov-2024
https://doi.org/10.1108/JPBM-05-2023-4528
Tobis SPiasek-Skupna JSuwalska A(2023)The Godspeed Questionnaire Series in the Assessment of the Social Robot TIAGo by Older IndividualsSensors10.3390/s2316725123:16(7251)Online publication date: 18-Aug-2023
https://doi.org/10.3390/s23167251
Show More Cited By

Index Terms

Does Trait Loneliness Predict Rejection of Social Robots?: The Role of Reduced Attributions of Unique Humanness (Exploring the Effect of Trait Loneliness on Anthropomorphism and Acceptance of Social Robots)
1. Human-centered computing
  1. Human computer interaction (HCI)
    1. HCI design and evaluation methods
      1. User studies

Recommendations

New dyads? The effect of social robots’ anthropomorphization on empathy towards human beings
Abstract
Research on Human-Technology Interactions revealed that, under certain conditions, people instinctively interact with social robots in ways comparable to Human–Human Interactions. Indeed, people apply social perception schemas and ...
Highlights
- Mind attribution to social robots activates dyadic completion between social robots and human beings.
Verbal anthropomorphism design of social robots: Investigating users’ privacy perception
Abstract
Many studies on the anthropomorphism of social robots have revealed two aspects of anthropomorphism in human–robot interaction. The first is that humanlike robots have advantages of emotional, functional, and relational interaction ...
Highlights
- We designed three levels of verbal anthropomorphism of social robots with five verbal style cues of conversational agents.
When stereotypes meet robots: The double-edge sword of robot gender and personality in human-robot interaction

With the emerging application of social and psychological concepts to human-robot interaction, we investigated the effects of occupational roles (security vs. healthcare), gender (male vs. female), and personality (extrovert vs. introvert) on user ...

Comments

Please enable JavaScript to view thecomments powered by Disqus.

Information & Contributors

Information

Published In

cover image ACM Conferences

HRI '20: Proceedings of the 2020 ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction

March 2020

690 pages

ISBN:9781450367462

DOI:10.1145/3319502

General Chairs:
Tony Belpaeme
Ghent University, Belgium
,
James Young
University of Manitoba, Canada
,
Program Chairs:
Hatice Gunes
University of Cambridge, UK
,
Laurel Riek
UC San Diego, USA

Copyright © 2020 ACM.

Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

Sponsors

SIGAI: ACM Special Interest Group on Artificial Intelligence
SIGCHI: ACM Special Interest Group on Computer-Human Interaction
IEEE-RAS: Robotics and Automation

Publisher

Association for Computing Machinery

New York, NY, United States

Publication History

Published: 09 March 2020

Permissions

Request permissions for this article.

Request Permissions

Check for updates

Author Tags

Qualifiers

Research-article

Conference

HRI '20

Sponsor:

SIGAI
SIGCHI
IEEE-RAS

HRI '20: ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction

March 23 - 26, 2020

Cambridge, United Kingdom

Acceptance Rates

Overall Acceptance Rate 268 of 1,124 submissions, 24%

Contributors

Other Metrics

View Article Metrics

Bibliometrics & Citations

Bibliometrics

Article Metrics

12
Total Citations
View Citations
918
Total Downloads

Downloads (Last 12 months)155
Downloads (Last 6 weeks)22

Reflects downloads up to 21 Nov 2024

Other Metrics

View Author Metrics

Citations

Cited By

Zhou JPorat Tvan Zalk N(2024)Humans Mindlessly Treat AI Virtual Agents as Social Beings, but This Tendency Diminishes Among the Young: Evidence From a Cyberball ExperimentHuman Behavior and Emerging Technologies10.1155/2024/88649092024:1Online publication date: 27-Sep-2024
https://doi.org/10.1155/2024/8864909
Xiang LPark H(2024)Influence of mortality threats on anthropomorphized brand attitude: role of control and connectedness motivesJournal of Product & Brand Management10.1108/JPBM-05-2023-4528Online publication date: 19-Nov-2024
https://doi.org/10.1108/JPBM-05-2023-4528
Tobis SPiasek-Skupna JSuwalska A(2023)The Godspeed Questionnaire Series in the Assessment of the Social Robot TIAGo by Older IndividualsSensors10.3390/s2316725123:16(7251)Online publication date: 18-Aug-2023
https://doi.org/10.3390/s23167251
Dang JLiu L(2023)Do lonely people seek robot companionship? A comparative examination of the Loneliness–Robot anthropomorphism link in the United States and ChinaComputers in Human Behavior10.1016/j.chb.2022.107637141:COnline publication date: 1-Apr-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1016/j.chb.2022.107637
Damholdt MQuick OSeibt JVestergaard CHansen M(2023)A Scoping Review of HRI Research on ‘Anthropomorphism’: Contributions to the Method Debate in HRIInternational Journal of Social Robotics10.1007/s12369-023-01014-z15:7(1203-1226)Online publication date: 27-Jun-2023
https://doi.org/10.1007/s12369-023-01014-z
Kuznetsova Y(2022)Emotional Attitudes towards the Components of the Digital Environment (Based on the Text Analysis of Network Comments)RUDN Journal of Psychology and Pedagogics10.22363/2313-1683-2022-19-2-253-28119:2(253-281)Online publication date: 2-Jun-2022
https://doi.org/10.22363/2313-1683-2022-19-2-253-281
Montalvo FAlves GPayne CSasser JMcConnell DSmither J(2022)Trait Loneliness and Social Presence in Human-Human and Human-Robot InteractionProceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society Annual Meeting10.1177/107118132266137866:1(817-821)Online publication date: 27-Oct-2022
https://doi.org/10.1177/1071181322661378
Hu ZXiang Y(2022)Who Is the Chief Culprit, Loneliness, or Smartphone Addiction? Evidence from Longitudinal Study and Weekly Diary MethodInternational Journal of Mental Health and Addiction10.1007/s11469-022-00892-022:1(599-614)Online publication date: 5-Aug-2022
https://doi.org/10.1007/s11469-022-00892-0
Park NKim YJang ELee JChoi E(2021)Effects of Social Competence on Social Use of AI Chatbots and Self-Disclosure : Mediation Effects of Loneliness and Perceived Humanlikeness of AI ChatbotsKorean Journal of Journalism & Communication Studies10.20879/kjjcs.2021.65.5.01065:5(367-401)Online publication date: 31-Oct-2021
https://doi.org/10.20879/kjjcs.2021.65.5.010
Coghlan S(2021)Robots and the Possibility of Humanistic CareInternational Journal of Social Robotics10.1007/s12369-021-00804-714:10(2095-2108)Online publication date: 26-Jun-2021
https://doi.org/10.1007/s12369-021-00804-7
Show More Cited By

View Options

Login options

Check if you have access through your login credentials or your institution to get full access on this article.

Full Access

Get this Publication

View options

PDF

View or Download as a PDF file.

eReader

View online with eReader.

Media

Figures

Other

Tables

View Table of Contents