January 31, 2022 by Antonio Andriella
How do Consumers’ Gender and Rational Thinking Affect the Acceptance of Entertainment Social Robots?
In this work, we have evaluated how humans’ gender and degrees of analytical thinking impacted their acceptance of a social robot. Specifically, we designed an experiment in which a TIAGo robot was endowed with the ability to provide several degrees of assistance to participants playing a cognitive game.
A model, based on technology acceptance theories, was proposed to estimate the intention to use the robot. Furthermore, we determined how participants’ gender and rational thinking conditioned the precedents of the intention to use. The results show that participants’ gender differences are more important than suggested by the literature. Indeed, in the case of women, the robot’s social influence and perceived enjoyment were the main motives for using it. On the other hand, men considered their perceived usefulness to be the principal reason and, as a differential argument, the ease of use it. Concerning the reasoning system, the most significant differences occurred between Individuals who have more heuristic thinking. In this case, social influence was the main reason for using a robot. On the contrary, the more rational participants gave ease of use as a differential argument.
Taken together, these findings support the importance of participants’ gender and analytical thinking in influencing their acceptance of the robot, featuring how they can elicit a different driver of acceptance.