Politeness Counts: Perceptions of Peacekeeping Robots

TL;DR

This study investigates how politeness influences people's perceptions of peacekeeping robots, finding that politeness significantly affects trust and acceptance regardless of the robot's human or robotic nature.

Contribution

It provides empirical evidence that politeness is a key factor in shaping perceptions of peacekeeping robots, with no significant differences between robot and human guards.

Findings

Politeness strongly affects perceptions of peacekeeping guards.

Age and sex of individuals do not influence perceptions.

No difference in responses to robots versus human guards.

Abstract

The 'intuitive' trust people feel when encountering robots in public spaces is a key determinant of their willingness to cooperate with these robots. We conducted four experiments to study this topic in the context of peacekeeping robots. Participants viewed scenarios, presented as static images or animations, involving a robot or a human guard performing an access-control task. The guards interacted more or less politely with younger and older male and female people. Our results show strong effects of the guard's politeness. Age and sex of the people interacting with the guard had no significant effect on participants' impressions of its attributes. There were no differences between responses to robot and human guards. This study advances the notion that politeness is a crucial determinant of people's perception of peacekeeping robots.