Abstract
Abstract: Rules of nonverbal behavior that should be possessed by an anthropomorphic robot in order to be liked and loved by users were investigated from the perspective of ‘reciprocity of liking’ and ‘social comparison, ’ which are socio-psychological t endencies common to all humans. This study focused on the approach behavior of the robot towards a user, one of the simplest nonverbal behaviors indicative of liking. In Experiment 1, participants (n=36) performed a sham task near three small robots. Eachrobot was controlled to perform one of three activities: approach, semi-approach and random movement. Participants evaluated preand post task liking for each robot. The result indicated no difference in liking ratings. In Experiment 2, 22-pairs of participantsperformed the identical task and evaluation as in Experiment 1 in the presence a robot that selectively approached one member of thedyad and another robot that moved randomly. Evaluation of liking by the participants indicated that participants who wereapproached liked the robot and had greater expectation of attachment. However the participants who were not approached evaluatedthe robot negatively. These results suggest that a social comparison process is involved in the evaluation of liking and attachment forrobots.
