Meet my new robot best friend: an exploration of the effects of personality traits in a robot on enhancing friendship

Abstract

The aim of the present study was to investigate whether personality traits enhance the building of friendship between the NAO robot and the child. Two robots were used, one with the character traits Extraversion and Agreeableness and one without character traits. A total of 16 children (mean age 7.56) participated in the present study. A questionnaire and two implicit measures (Child Implicit Association Test and Grab Bag Test) were used to gather data about the intelligibility, friendship, trust and preference for the robots. The hypothesis that children will notice the difference between the two robots, was confirmed. Children preferred the personality robot over the standard robot, albeit statistically insignificant. In contrast to predictions, adding the character traits did not result in an enhanced friendship between the NAO robot and the child. The CIAT seems to be a successful measure for preference, despite of the insignificant results on the robot CIAT. The GBT did not bring forth the expected results. In conclusion, the results of the current study provide inspiration for future research and demonstrated the benefits of a multidisciplinary view on human-robot interaction.