The effects of robot's social praise on human responses in 2D game

Human-Robot Interaction (HRI) is an interaction between humans and robots through verbal and/or non-verbal cues. Studies in the HRI field concern the psychological effect, especially reactance, experienced by humans in decision-making situations with robots. This study applied persuasive attempts to investigate the impact of social praise by a social robot on human psychological reactance in a decision-making situation. The robot socially expressed its recognition (an acknowledgement of the existence) and reassurance (the action of removing someone's doubts) towards humans in a game, namely "Survival in Island". Social praise was expressed verbally in adoring human actions, such as 'Good Job' for following the robot's suggestions in making decisions. In the study, the participants were randomly divided into two conditions (social praise: presence vs absence) in a between-subject design study. Besides using questionnaires to measure humans' psychological conditions, the level of stress experienced by humans was also collected using a Galvanic Skin Response (GSR) sensor. The results indicated significant effects of social praise on perceived ease of use toward the robot, perceived intention to use the robot again in the future, perceived belief towards the robot and perceived compliance with the robot's suggestions through MANOVA tests. Other significant psychological and physiological effects of praise were not found in the study.