Exploring Cross-cultural Differences in Persuasive Robotics

Abstract

One of the fundamental aspects of social interaction is persuasion. It is a useful feature for a social robot to incorporate in its social behavior. Persuasiveness in human-robot interaction can be influenced by a number of factors including robot»s appearance and behavior. In this study, the effect of robot gender was investigated. The experiment was conducted in the university with a humanoid robot NAO interacting with local Kazakhstani citizens and foreign participants from Asia, Europe and North America. Robot introduced him/herself, made a persuasive appeal and offered to make a donation. During the experiment, robot»s gender was varied by changing its synthesized voice and name. The findings imply that the gender of robot has influenced participants» preferences in making donation. Specifically, female robot received more donations from female and male participants in comparison to a male robot. In addition, foreigners donated more money than locals. The overall results suggest that HRI designers could consider manipulating the robot»s gender when designing robots for persuasive applications.