Human-robot swarm interaction: coordinated role of human mind mindsets and robot group entitativity

ABSTRACT

The one-on-one human–robot interaction has expanded to the group level; robot groups are increasingly exerting psychosocial implications on human beings. However, how people interact with robot groups, especially how human factors and robot group factors coordinate to influence people’s responses to robot groups, is underexplored. To investigate this issue, the present study examined the interaction effect between individual differences in fixed and growth mindsets about the human mind and the fundamental characteristics of robot groups (i.e. entitativity) on responses to the robots during human–robot interaction. We induced mindsets (fixed or growth) about the human mind and manipulated the level of robot group entitativity (high or low) to capture responses to robots during human–robot interaction using virtual reality (VR) technology. The results revealed that a growth (versus fixed) mindset about the human mind promoted self-disclosure toward, and reduced behavioural anxiety with respect to robot groups with high (versus low) entitativity. We found that increased psychological closeness with robots accounted for these effects. Our findings contribute to research on the determinants of human–robot relationships and present implications for human–robot interactions at the group level.

KEYWORDS:

• Mindset
• mind perception
• entitativity
• human–robot interaction
• robot group

Data availability statement

https://osf.io/78ghv/?view_only=9aa355c96eaf4bf0a19484a3e8437961.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

The authors gratefully acknowledge the financial support provided by the Natural Science Foundation of China [grant number 32100869; 32271124], the Project of Humanities and Social Science Research of the Ministry of Education of China [grant number 21YJC190003], the Major Project of the National Social Science Foundation of China [grant number 18ZDA332], the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central University [grant number 2019NTSS30]. The funders had no role in study design, data collection, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.