Abstract
Social robots have increasingly been entering children’s daily lives and their domestic environment. Whereas various studies have shown children’s enthusiasm towards social robots in, for example, an educational context, little is known about children’s acceptance—or rejection—of domestic social robots. This paper aimed at filling this research gap by developing a model of children’s intention to adopt a social robot at home, based on the Theory of Planned Behavior. Relying on data from a survey among 570 children aged eight to nine, we found that, before having ever interacted with the robot in real life, 82% of the children were willing to adopt the robot at home. Children’s adoption intention was mainly predicted by hedonic attitudes and social norms, as well as by their general attitude towards robots, which was linked to adoption both directly and indirectly through hedonic attitudes and social norms. Our findings suggest that entertainment-related and normative considerations drive children’s intention to adopt a domestic social robot.
Highlights
With the recent technological developments, social robots which can be defined as robots that are capable of approaching human–human interaction [1]—have been entering the consumer market and the domestic environment [2, 3]
We focused on children aged eight to nine, because children in that age group are capable of participating in surveys [17, 18] and master various social and relation skills relevant for studying child–robot interaction (CRI), which is not the case with younger children (e.g., [19])
The model was tested with structural equation modelling (SEM) using Mplus [94]
Summary
With the recent technological developments, social robots which can be defined as robots that are capable of approaching human–human interaction [1]—have been entering the consumer market and the domestic environment [2, 3]. Research has directed its attention to social robots for educational purposes (for a review see [5]), such as language tutoring (e.g., [6]) or physical therapy (for a review see for example [7]). These studies show that children are enthusias-. With social robots increasingly being made for use in children’s homes, it is essential to gain more insights into children’s intended adoption, or rejection, of a social robot in a domestic environment. We focus on the pre-adoption phase, that is, the phase before a child interacts with a robot (e.g., [12, 13])
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