The effects of gender and personality of robot assistants on customers' acceptance of their service

The Covid-19 pandemic has stimulated the use of social robots in front-office services. However, some initial applications yielded disappointing results, as managers were unaware of the level of development of the robots' artificial intelligence systems. This study proposes to adapt the Almere...

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Bibliographic Details
Authors: Forgas Coll, Santiago, Huertas García, Rubén, Andriella, Antonio, Alenyà, Guillem
Format: article
Status:Versión aceptada para publicación
Publication Date:2022
Country:España
Institution:Universidad de Barcelona
Repository:Dipòsit Digital de la UB
OAI Identifier:oai:diposit.ub.edu:2445/186469
Online Access:https://hdl.handle.net/2445/186469
Access Level:Open access
Keyword:Robots
COVID-19
Intel·ligència artificial
Satisfacció del consumidor
Estudis de gènere
Artificial intelligence
Consumer satisfaction
Gender studies
Description
Summary:The Covid-19 pandemic has stimulated the use of social robots in front-office services. However, some initial applications yielded disappointing results, as managers were unaware of the level of development of the robots' artificial intelligence systems. This study proposes to adapt the Almere model to estimate the technological acceptance of service robots, which express their gender and personality, whilst assisting consumers. A 2 × 2 (two genders vs. two personalities) between-subjects experiment was conducted with 219 participants. Model estimation with Structural Equation Modelling confirmed seven out of eight hypotheses, and all four scenarios were estimated with Ordinary Least Squares, showing that robot gender and personality affected their technological acceptance.