Robot Reciprocation of Hugs Increases Both Interacting Times and Self-disclosures

Abstract

Physical contact like touching and hugging plays an essential role in social bonding between people by encouraging interactions and self-disclosure. However, in a human–robot interaction context, it remains unknown whether physical activity with robots provides such similar effects, even though several positive effects of touch interactions have been unveiled. Therefore, we used a hugging robot that we previously developed and experimentally investigated its physical interactions related to encouraging interactions and self-disclosure with 48 participants. Our results showed that reciprocated hugs increased the interaction times and encouraged more self-disclosure from the hugged participants than those who did not get reciprocated hugs.