Shape It – The Influence of Robot Body Shape on Gender Perception in Robots

Abstract

Abstract. Previous research has shown that gender-related stereotypes are even applied to robots. In HRI, a robot's appearance, for instance, visual facial gender cues such as hairstyle of a robot have successfully been used to elicit gender-stereotypical judgments about male and female prototypes, respectively. To complement the set of features to visually indicate a robot's gender, we explored the impact of waist-to-hip ratio (WHR) and shoulder width (SW) in robot prototypes. Specifically, we investigated the effect of male vs. female appearance on perceived robot gender, the attribution of gender stereotypical traits, the robots' suitability for stereotypical tasks, and participants' trust toward the robots. Our results have demonstrated that the manipulation of WHR and SW correctly elicited gendered perceptions of the two prototypes. However, the perception of male robot gender did not affect the attribution of agentic traits and cognitive trust. Nevertheless, participants tended to rate the male robot as more suitable for stereotypically male tasks. In line with our predictions, participants preferred to use the female robot shape for stereotypically female tasks. They tended to attribute more communal traits and showed more affective trust toward the robot that was designed with a female torso versus a male robot torso. These results demonstrate that robot body shape activates stereotypes toward robots. These in turn, deeply impact people's attitudes and trust toward robots which determine people's motivation to engage in HRI.

Robots Racialized in the Likeness of Marginalized Social Identities are Subject to Greater Dehumanization than those racialized as White

“…These findings are consistent with prior research indicating the automaticity at which social biases extend to and affect behavior in HRI (e.g., [17], [21], [22], [46], [30]). Moreover, the findings support indications by a growing body of literature (containing instances of unprovoked abuse towards robots -e.g., [47], [48]; as well as less empathy for robots relative to that for people when witnessing or participating in their abuse -e.g., [49], [50]) that people more readily engage in the dehumanization of robots.…”

“…Even when robots lack explicit gendering, the automaticity at which people categorize and make inferences on the basis of gender nevertheless influences the human-robot interaction dynamics. For example: genderstereotypic cues in a robot's morphology and head-style are enough to prompt the attribution of gender to an otherwise agendered robot [21], [22]; the perception of a robot as gendered prompts different evaluations of its likability [23]; and nonconformity of a robot's behavior relative to extant stereotypes associated with its gendering reduces user acceptance [24]. Thus, it is not surprising that antisocial behavior in the form of gender-based stereotyping, bias, and aggression extends to human-like interactions with gynoids.…”

Robots And Racism

“…Previous research has shown that people use these social categories even in impression formation about nonhuman entities [11,13]. For instance, manipulation of a robot's body shape [1] or hairstyle in a gender stereotypical fashion elicits the perception of gender in robots [11,23,33].…”

Robotics Has a Race Problem

“…Thus, for instance, people have different expectations of humanoid robots than they do of robots shaped like machines (Hegel et al 2008; Kwak 2014) or animals (Lee, Lau, and Hong 2011) and can quickly identify a robot as being a robot dog or a robot cat or an android. 4 Similarly, people are remarkably quick to attribute gender to robots, and their relationships with robots are shaped by whether they are interacting with a “male” or “female” robot (Bernotat, Eyssel, and Sachse 2017; Eyssel and Hegel 2012; Otterbacher and Talias 2017; Robertson 2018; Siegel, Breazeal, and Norton 2009).…”