PUB - Publikationen an der Universität Bielefeld

Humanlikeness, including robot gender, im- pacts people’s impression of social robots [24] and ac- tual human robot interaction (HRI) [34, 42]. Although robot gender has been manipulated in various ways in previous research [2, 24], robot body shape as a gender cue has been neglected in this context. Therefore, the current research investigated the effects of manipulating a robot torso’s waist-to-hip ratio (WHR) and shoulder width (SW) on social judgments of a robot. As hypoth- esized, a robot with a female body shape was perceived as more communal, it was preferred for stereotypically female tasks, and evoked more cognitive and affective trust than a robot with a male body shape. Unexpect- edly, both robot types were perceived as equally agen- tic and they were deemed equally suitable for stereo- typically male tasks. Above and beyond, participants’ motivation to respond in a socially desirable manner, their societal beliefs about agentic and communal traits considered appropriate for men and women, sexist at- titudes, gender, and technology commitment affected their impression formation about robots. We point to the risks of designing gendered robots and recommend to manipulate robot gender deliberately with regard to the effects this might have on HRI.