When humans and robots meet: intergroup contact in human-robot interaction

Abstract

As technology advances at an accelerating pace, robotics is becoming an integral part of our everyday lives. The growing integration of robots into human environments necessitates a deeper understanding of human-robot interactions (HRI). In this context, adopting a social psychological perspective can be fruitful for exploring the social psychological processes that shape attitudes toward robots. Drawing on intergroup contact theory (ICT), the present paper investigates intergroup contact with robots. While existing research on ICT in HRI is sparse and predominantly investigates human-like robots, this study focuses on machine-like robots in an extension of the literature. To this end, a multiple group experiment was conducted that compared a contact condition (playing the “hot wire” game with a robot) to a control group (no contact with the robot). The participants of the contact condition were further divided into two groups, with one group cooperating and one group competing with the robot. Based on findings from intergroup relations in human-human interactions, it was expected that intergroup contact with robots results in favorable perceptions of and reactions to robots. The findings indicate that intergroup contact fosters positive attitudes towards robots and the support for pro-robot social change, while having no significant impact on the willingness for future interaction. Moreover, the comparison of cooperation with and competition against the robot reveals that the form of contact influences outcomes in a way that contradicts expected relationships, indicating that some mechanisms of ICT may not be directly transferable to robots and need to be considered more thoroughly.