Research in social robotics is thought to concern a future society where people and robots communicate socially. Robots are expected to interpret people’s behaviors as well as generate meaningful social behaviors in order to seamlessly integrate into the inherently social fabric of human society. The current special issue focuses on the associations between robots and humans and aims to foster discussion on the development of computational models, robotic embodiments, and behaviors that enable robots to act socially. It presents novel research on the impact that robots have on people and their social and physical environment. The investigation of associations between people and robots requires social interpretation when robot gestures and body movements influence ascription of anthropomorphism and likeability of robots, as is the case for the first paper of this special issue “To Err is Human(-like): Effects of Robot Gesture on Perceived Anthropomorphism and Likeability” by Maha Salem, Friederike Eyssel, Katharina Rohlfing, Stefan Kopp, and Frank Joublin. The authors present evidence suggesting that non-verbal behaviors displayed by humanoid robots affect the degree to which the robots are anthropomorphized and mental models are formed during interaction. The paper “Interpretation of Emotional Body Language Displayed by a Humanoid Robot: A Case Study with Children”, by Aryel Beck, Lola, Canamero, Antoine Hiolle, Luisa Damiano, Piero Cosi, Fabio Tesser, and Giacomo