An Investigation of Social Influence of Group Norms on Human in Human–Robot Groups

Numerous previously conducted studies presently examine social robots' ways of responding, gesturing, and displaying emotion in human-robot interactions. Moreover, sociality implies that robots not only exhibit human-like behaviors but also display a tendency to adapt to a group of individuals. For robots to exhibit sociality, they must adapt to group norms without telling them how to behave by the group members. This study investigates whether group norms can affect human member's decision-making in human-robot groups. Thus, we conduct quizzes with unclear and vague answers, and we instruct a participant to take the quizzes with two robots. We assess the influence by making the participant and two robots repeat a set of two actions: answering the same quiz and recognizing each answer of the group members. We investigate chronological change of their answers while answering the quiz showing the same question. The experimental results of the quiz demonstrate that the human participants changed their answers after recognizing the robots' answers for the first time. They also gradually decrease the fluctuation of their answers while answering the quiz with the robots, whereas the human participant did not fluctuate their answers while answering the quiz alone. It assumed that the human participants are confused about the diversity of the answers in the group and have to be aware of the robots' consideration of the group norm, so that they can adjust their answers to the group norm. Therefore, we conclude that the robots trying to comply with a group norm affect human's decision-making.

I. Introduction

Nowadays, as the population of the world increases, robot technology is expected to be involved in everyday applications in households, offices, and public places. In our society, today, humans are going to live with robots in human–robot communities [1]. In the field of elderly care, for instance, elderly people enjoy maintaining their health by excercising with robots and are assisted by human–friendly robots [2]. For robots to naturally participate in our human world, they must behave like humans and adjust to multiparty situations with sociality to eliminate anxisty regarding their beahviors. Therefore, numerous conducted studies have focused on robots’ social behavior, such as how robots respond, gesture, and display emotion [3]–[6].