Training Social Skills With a Social Robot: An Experimental Study on the Perception of a Virtual Robot’s Different Training Styles and Roles

Since robots trigger social reactions as social interaction partnersbut are less socially complex and intimidating, they may offer apromising way to train young adults’ social skills and improvetheir social confidence. Since social robots can take overdifferent roles and display different behaviors, two questionsarise: Should the robot take over the role of a coach (higherexpertise, higher hierarchical level) or a training partner (equalexpertise, equal hierarchical level)? Is the training style moreappreciated when it is challenging (focusing on shortcomingsthat can be improved) or encouraging (focusing on successesthat should be strengthened)? These two aspects are examined inan online study with 2x2 between-subjects design whereparticipants get to interact with a virtual robot taking over thedifferent training roles and styles. Results show that a robotcoach is evaluated more positively than a robot training partner,but otherwise does not lead to any evaluation differences. Thechallenging in comparison to the encouraging training style,however, leads to clearly negative evaluations of the robot andthe interaction with it on various measures. Furthermore,participants’ loneliness was found to have an overarchingnegative effect on the robot’s perceived sociability.