Psychological factors of people's willingness to interact with social robots: Review of domestic and foreign research

Abstract

Background. One of the directions of using robots is their introduction into the sphere of social services for citizens. Research is underway in Russia and abroad related to the creation and improvement of social robots with high potential for interpersonal interaction, which is extremely important in such areas as education, healthcare and social services. This technology opens up new horizons for improving the level of service and effective communication with various user groups, including children, the elderly, and people with disabilities. The purposeof this article is to provide an overview of domestic and foreign publications devoted to the study of factors determining people's willingness to interact with social robots. Research methods. A search and subsequent content analysis of domestic (RSCI) foreign (Web of Science, Scopus, Semantic Scholar) publications was performed. The purpose of the content analysis was to analyze the fields of application of social robots, identify their functional features and systematize psychological factors related to people's willingness to interact with these robotic technologies. The resultsof the study shows that the level of anthropomorphism of a social robot, the presence of gender characteristics in the robot, and the degree of their intellectual characteristics require taking into account the context of using a social robot. People's willingness to interact with a social robot is associated with a number of intrapersonal (openness to new technologies, experience interacting with robotic systems, trust in technical devices, hedonistic motivation) and external factors (age, environmental conditions in which interaction with a social robot is carried out).