Negative attitudes towards robots vary by the occupation of robots

Abstract

The "negative attitudes towards robots scale" (NARS) has been widely applied in the field of robot-human interaction. However, the various occupations and roles of robots have not been discussed when studying negative attitudes towards robots. This study explores whether the occupation of robots could influence people's negative attitudes towards them. For the first time, two types of robots that may be widely used were used in a NARS-related study. We conducted online questionnaire research, covering three separate parts: negative attitudes towards robots, negative attitudes towards service robots, and negative attitudes towards security robots. The results of the online survey collected from 114 participants (54 females and 60 males) highlighted differences among the scores of people's negative attitudes towards service robots and the negative attitudes towards robots or security robots. People showed the lowest negative attitudes towards service robots. There were no significant differences between the negative attitudes towards robots and security robots. This study supports the hypothesis that people show different levels of negative attitudes towards different types of robots in terms of occupational division. These results provide a helpful indicator for the study and design of robots in various occupations in the robotics industry.