Sharing Stress With a Robot: What Would a Robot Say?

Authors

Honson Y. Ling, University of WashingtonFollow
Elin A. Björling, University of WashingtonFollow

Abstract

With the prevalence of mental health problems today, designing human-robot interaction for mental health intervention is not only possible, but critical. The current experiment examined how three types of robot disclosure (emotional, technical, and by-proxy) affect robot perception and human disclosure behavior during a stress-sharing activity. Emotional robot disclosure resulted in the lowest robot perceived safety. Post-hoc analysis revealed that increased perceived stress predicted reduced human disclosure, user satisfaction, robot likability, and future robot use. Negative attitudes toward robots also predicted reduced intention for future robot use. This work informs on the possible design of robot disclosure, as well as how individual attributes, such as perceived stress, can impact human robot interaction in a mental health context.

DOI

10.30658/hmc.1.8

Author ORCID Identifier

Honson Y. Ling 0000-0003-0334-6130

Elin A. Björling 0000-0002-0385-2562

Recommended Citation

Ling, H. Y., & Björling, E. A. (2020). Sharing stress with a robot: What would a robot say? Human-Machine Communication, 1, 133-158. https://doi.org/10.30658/hmc.1.8