Rude Humans and Vengeful Robots: Examining Human Perceptions of Robot Retaliatory Intentions in Professional Settings
This addresses the problem of designing socially appropriate robots for workplace interactions, though it is incremental as it builds on prior social robot research.
The study investigated how humans perceive robot retaliatory intentions in professional settings, finding that robots are expected to adhere to social norms regardless of human rudeness, but there are advantages for robots seen as forgiving.
Humans and robots are increasingly working in personal and professional settings. In workplace settings, humans and robots may work together as colleagues, potentially leading to social expectations, or violation thereof. Extant research has primarily sought to understand social interactions and expectations in personal rather than professional settings, and none of these studies have examined negative outcomes arising from violations of social expectations. This paper reports the results of a 2x3 online experiment that used a unique first-person perspective video to immerse participants in a collaborative workplace setting. The results are nuanced and reveal that while robots are expected to act in accordance with social expectations despite human behavior, there are benefits for robots perceived as being the bigger person in the face of human rudeness. Theoretical and practical implications are provided which discuss the import of these findings for the design of social robots.