The Impact of Physical Anthropomorphism in Social Robots on User Compliance: The Moderating Effect of Issue Involvement*

Abstract

This study investigates how the level of physical anthropomorphism in conversational agents affects their persuasiveness. The experiment compared robots with low and high levels of anthropomorphism, akin to human appearance. Results indicated that while sophisticated physical embodiment did not universally enhance persuasiveness, it did have an interaction effect based on issue involvement. For low involvement issues, persuasiveness increased with higher anthropomorphism. In contrast, for high involvement issues, persuasiveness remained constant across different levels of anthropomorphism but dropped when robots closely resembled humans, possibly due to trust in high-tech robots. The findings highlight the importance of digital agent’s persuasive power and ethics in employing and designing robots.