Robots do not judge: service robots can alleviate embarrassment in service encounters

Holthöwer, Jana; Doorn, Jenny van

doi:10.1007/s11747-022-00862-x

Cited by 84 publications

(34 citation statements)

References 65 publications

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“…Building on social cognitive theory (Fiske et al, 2002(Fiske et al, , 2007, we provide evidence for the role of warmth (vs competence) in reducing disconfirmed expectations. This provides a theoretically informed route to lowering possible customers' negative responses towards the service and responds to the recent call posed by Holthöwer and van Doorn (2022) to show how robots' negative effects can be attenuated.…”

Section: Theoretical Contributionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Dashed expectations in service experiences. Effects of robots human-likeness on customers’ responses

Laura

Viglia

Nunan

2023

EJM

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Purpose There is growing interest in the use of human-like social robots, able to undertake complex tasks whilst building consumer engagement. However, further exploration is needed on the optimal level of humanoid appearance for service robots. In particular, the literature is limited with respect to mitigating disconfirmed expectations for robots high in human-likeness. This paper aims to address this gap by testing the effect of robot appearance, disconfirmed expectations and warmth (vs competence) on customers’ responses. Design/methodology/approach The study adopts a mixed-method design by presenting a focus group (Study 1) that guides two laboratory experiments (Studies 2 and 3). Studies 2 and 3 test for the moderating effect of warmth (vs competence) and the mediating roles of perceived eeriness and disconfirmed expectations. Findings The findings show that a robot high (vs low) in human-likeness leads to higher negative customers’ responses, which is explained by disconfirmed expectations rather than perceived eeriness. However, when customers interact with a warm (vs competent) robot high in human-likeness, this negative effect vanishes. Research limitations/implications The paper investigates boundary conditions and underlying mechanisms that affect customers’ experiences. Although the study adopts high realistic experiments, a limitation lies in not measuring customers’ actual behaviours in the field. Practical implications This study provides new insights on how the appearance and characteristics of social robots influence the consumers’ experience. By doing so, this study offers managers actionable insights (i.e. enhancing warmth) to lessen the risk of disconfirmed expectations. Originality/value The paper offers new explanations as to why human-like robots can generate negative responses from customers. Moving beyond the “uncanny valley” hypothesis, this study shows the key role of disconfirmed expectations in explaining consumers’ negative responses towards humanoid robots. Moreover, it sheds light on the moderating role of warmth (vs competence), which can mitigate such negative effects.

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Section: Theoretical Contributionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In particular, the optimal level of EJM 57,4 humanoid appearance for service robots remains unexplored (Wirtz et al, 2018;Belanche et al, 2020a). Moreover, theoretical and empirical exploration is imperative to uncover how robots' negative effects can be attenuated or avoided (Holthöwer and van Doorn, 2022).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Dashed expectations in service experiences. Effects of robots human-likeness on customers’ responses

Laura

Viglia

Nunan

2023

EJM

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“…Although consumers are increasingly reliant on digital service encounters, they do not always readily accept technological service providers; thus, the use of such technologies can evoke skepticism and trigger negative feelings (Holthöwer & van Doorn, 2022; Mozafari et al, 2021). Skepticism refers to a person's tendency to doubt, not believe, or question (Boush et al, 1994; Foreh & Grier, 2003).…”

Section: Hypothesis Developmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

I, chatbot! the impact of anthropomorphism and gaze direction on willingness to disclose personal information and behavioral intentions

Pizzi

Vannucci

Mazzoli

et al. 2023

Psychology and Marketing

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The present research focuses on the interplay between two common features of the customer service chatbot experience: gaze direction and anthropomorphism. Although the dominant approach in marketing theory and practice is to make chatbots as human‐like as possible, the current study, built on the humanness‐value‐loyalty model, addresses the chain of effects through which chatbots' nonverbal behaviors affect customers' willingness to disclose personal information and purchase intentions. By means of two experiments that adopt a real chatbot in a simulated shopping environment (i.e., car rental and travel insurance), the present work allows us to understand how to reduce individuals' tendency to see conversational agents as less knowledgeable and empathetic compared with humans. The results show that warmth perceptions are affected by gaze direction, whereas competence perceptions are affected by anthropomorphism. Warmth and competence perceptions are found to be key drivers of consumers’ skepticism toward the chatbot, which, in turn, affects consumers’ trust toward the service provider hosting the chatbot, ultimately leading consumers to be more willing to disclose their personal information and to repatronize the e‐tailer in the future. Building on the Theory of Mind, our results show that perceiving competence from a chatbot makes individuals less skeptical as long as they feel they are good at detecting others’ ultimate intentions.

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“…Uchida et al (2017) compared a robot and a human mental health counselor and found that the extent of personal disclosure to the counselor depends on the perceived sensitivity of the disclosed topic. As another example, Pitardi et al (2022) and Holthöwer and van Doorn (2022) found that reduced perceptions of agency from a robot (vs. human) service provider could make customers feel less embarrassed during potentially embarrassing service encounters (e.g., embarrassing medical treatments). This work focused on anticipated embarrassment and suggested the importance of examining various contextual factors that may further influence self-disclosure.…”

Section: Previous Research On Self-disclosurementioning

confidence: 99%

Do You Mind if I Ask You a Personal Question? How AI Service Agents Alter Consumer Self-Disclosure

Kim

Jiang

Duhachek

et al. 2022

Journal of Service Research

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The use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) has grown rapidly in the service industry and AI’s emotional capabilities have become an important feature for interacting with customers. The current research examines personal disclosures that occur during consumer interactions with AI and humans in service settings. We found that consumers’ lay beliefs about AI (i.e., a perceived lack of social judgment capability) lead to enhanced disclosure of sensitive personal information to AI (vs. humans). We identify boundaries for this effect such that consumers prefer disclosure to humans over AI in (i) contexts where social support (rather than social judgment) is expected and (ii) contexts where sensitive information will be curated by the agent for social dissemination. In addition, we reveal underlying psychological processes such that the motivation to avoid negative social judgment favors disclosing to AI whereas seeking emotional support favors disclosing to humans. Moreover, we reveal that adding humanlike factors to AI can increase consumer fear of social judgment (reducing disclosure in contexts of social risk) while simultaneously increasing perceived AI capacity for empathy (increasing disclosure in contexts of social support). Taken together, these findings provide theoretical and practical insights into tradeoffs between utilizing AI versus human agents in service contexts.

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Robots do not judge: service robots can alleviate embarrassment in service encounters

Cited by 84 publications

References 65 publications

Dashed expectations in service experiences. Effects of robots human-likeness on customers’ responses

Dashed expectations in service experiences. Effects of robots human-likeness on customers’ responses

I, chatbot! the impact of anthropomorphism and gaze direction on willingness to disclose personal information and behavioral intentions

Do You Mind if I Ask You a Personal Question? How AI Service Agents Alter Consumer Self-Disclosure

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