Gender preferences for robots and gender equality orientation in communication situations

Abstract

The individual physical appearances of robots are considered significant, similar to the way that those of humans are. We investigated whether users prefer robots with male or female physical appearances for use in daily communication situations and whether egalitarian gender role attitudes are related to this preference. One thousand adult men and women aged 20–60 participated in the questionnaire survey. The results of our study showed that in most situations and for most subjects, “males” was not selected and “females” or “neither” was selected. Moreover, the number of respondents who chose “either” was higher than that who chose “female.” Furthermore, we examined the relationship between gender and gender preference and confirmed that the effect of gender on the gender preference for a robot weakened when the human factor was eliminated. In addition, in some situations for android-type robots and in all situations for machine-type robots, equality orientation in gender role attitudes was shown to be higher for people who were not specific about their gender preferences. It is concluded that there is no need to introduce a robot that specifies its gender. Robots with a gender-neutral appearance might be more appropriate for applications requiring complex human–robot interaction and help avoid reproducing a gender bias.

Smiles and Angry Faces vs. Nods and Head Shakes: Facial Expressions at the Service of Autonomous Vehicles

“…Similarly, in people's minds, heavy lifting is typically reserved for a male social robot and tending to the elderly for its female counterpart. On the other hand, however, a familiar and relatable physical appearance tends to facilitate both human-robot and human-VHC interactions and lays the foundation for the public to accept and eventually adopt these new technologies [91,137,138]. Furthermore, recent work has provided evidence for the diminishing gap in gender stereotypes regarding personality traits and social roles of men and women [139], which, interestingly enough, has been shown to apply to gendered VHCs as well [126].…”

We Do Not Anthropomorphize a Robot Based Only on Its Cover: Context Matters too!

“…In another study, giving the robot a gendered name and voice (male, female, or neutral) did not produce a difference in perceived competence between the genders [187]. When explicitly asked, adult participants chose a gender-neutral robot over a gendered one [196]. This discrepancy can potentially be explained by the methodology employed.…”

“…A wide variety of robots have been used in the literature, and the diversity of their appearances makes it difficult to generalize results from one robot to another. Some studies do not specify the type of robot used (e.g., [76,80,170,196]) or use a robot created by the research team itself (e.g., [60,70,71,173,194,225]). The beginning of standardization is allowed by the Anthropomorphic roBOT (ABOT) database, which references an anthropomorphic score for 251 robots based on the voting of 1000 participants.…”

“…This discrepancy can potentially be explained by the methodology employed. Some studies presented robots by video or by image [187,196], whereas in [188], the participants interacted with a physically present robot.…”