Threatening Flocks and Mindful Snowflakes: How Group Entitativity Affects Perceptions of Robots

Robots are expected to become present in society in increasing numbers, yet few studies in human-robot interaction (HRI) go beyond one-to-one interaction to examine how characteristics of robot groups will affect HRI. In particular, people may show more negative or aggressive behavior toward entitative (i.e., cohesive) robot groups, like they do toward entitative human groups, compared to diverse groups. Furthermore, because people in collectivist (e.g., Japan) and individualistic (e.g., US) cultures respond to groups and to cues of entitativity differently, entitative robot groups may affect people differently across such cultures. This study examines how robot Entitativity Condition (Single Robots, Diverse Group, Entitative Group) and Country (USA, Japan) affect emotions toward, mind attributions to, and willingness to interact with robots. Results indicate that Entitative robot groups, compared to Single robots, were viewed more negatively. Entitative robots were also more threatening than Diverse robots. Diverse robot groups, compared to Single robots, were viewed as having more mind, and participants were more willing to interact with them. These findings were similar in the USA and Japan. This indicates that robot group entitativity and diversity is critical to keep in mind when designing robots.

1. Introduction

Over 14 million home robots (e.g., Roomba vacuum cleaners) were made and distributed by the iRobot company since 2002 [1]. Just last year, 1000 humanoid Pepper robots were made and distributed in Japan [2]. In the upcoming years, it is expected that humans will view and interact with more robots of various types - and not just in one-on-one interactions, but in interactions involving groups of humans and groups of robots.