Robots in need: How patterns of emotional behavior influence willingness to help

Abstract

This study explores how different patterns of robot emotional behavior influences people's intentions to help a robot requiring human assistance. In this online study, participants saw a set of videos of a robot receiving human help to get free of an obstruction, with different emotional behavior in each video. These initial results suggest that people would be more willing to aid a robot that showed either happy or sad behavior while stuck, compared to one that remained neutral. There was no influence of the behavior shown by the robot after being freed. This suggests that it is the behavior of the robot while stuck that is most influential in people's perceptions and intentions to interact with the robot. Furthermore, the finding that positive behavior increased intention to help suggests that behavior patterns that are unusual by human standards may be available to robots to gain assistance, but further work is required to identify whether this translates to actual helping.