The Emotional Dilemma: Influence of a Human-like Robot on Trust and Cooperation

TL;DR

This study investigates how human-like emotional expressions in robots influence trust and cooperation, revealing that emotional displays can induce anxiety and reduce trust, depending on the task context.

Contribution

It provides empirical evidence that emotional robot behaviors can negatively impact trust and cooperation, emphasizing the importance of task-dependent robot design.

Findings

Emotional robots induce more anxiety than neutral robots.

Participants trust emotional robots less and are less cooperative.

Perceived intelligence increases trust, while competitiveness reduces it.

Abstract

Increasing anthropomorphic robot behavioral design could affect trust and cooperation positively. However, studies have shown contradicting results and suggest a task-dependent relationship between robots that display emotions and trust. Therefore, this study analyzes the effect of robots that display human-like emotions on trust, cooperation, and participants' emotions. In the between-group study, participants play the coin entrustment game with an emotional and a non-emotional robot. The results show that the robot that displays emotions induces more anxiety than the neutral robot. Accordingly, the participants trust the emotional robot less and are less likely to cooperate. Furthermore, the perceived intelligence of a robot increases trust, while a desire to outcompete the robot can reduce trust and cooperation. Thus, the design of robots expressing emotions should be task dependent to avoid adverse effects that reduce trust and cooperation.