Investigation of Social Influence of Group Norms on Human in a Human{robot Group

Abstract

At present, there are a number of studies that examine social robots’ ways of responding, gestur- ing, and displaying emotion. However, sociality implies robots not only exhibiting human{like behaviors but also displaying a tendency to adapt to a group of individuals. For robots to exhibit sociality, they must adapt to group norms without being told by the group members how to behave. In the present study, we investigated whether group norms affect human member’s making{decisions in human{robot groups. To this end, we prepared quizzes with unclear and vague answers, and instructed a participant to take the quizzes with two robots. We assessed the influence by having the participant and two robots repeat a set of two actions: answering the same quiz and recognizing each answer of the group members. The results of the quiz experiments demonstrated that the human participants changed their answer after recognizing the robots’ answers for the first time and gradually decreased the fluctuation of their answers when answering the quiz with the robots. We concluded that the robots trying to comply with a group norm affected human’s making–decisions.