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Updated: Oct 17, 2025

Efficient SARS-CoV-2 Quantitative Reverse Transcriptase PCR Saliva Diagnostic Strategy utilizing Open-Source Pipetting Robots
Published on: February 11, 2022
Are we behaviorally immune to COVID-19 through robots?
Xiling Xiong1, IpKin Anthony Wong1, Fiona X Yang2
1School of Tourism Management, Sun Yat-Sen University, Tangzhou Rd. 1, Zhuhai, China.
Abstract:
In the context of the health risks of the COVID-19 pandemic, tourists' choices have shifted to reflect a subconscious psychological mechanism - the behavioral immune system - that facilitates human organisms to better identify plausible threats to ones' health through environment cues. This research draws upon this theoretical lens to assess tourists' pre-trip hotel evaluation in two 2 × 2 between-subject experiments. Experiment 1 (robot vs. human) tested the service provider's effect on hotel selection evaluation through the mediation of sense of control and the moderation of pandemic risk. Experiment 2 examined this chain of relationship through the moderation of hotel type. This research contributes to the literature by underscoring the pathogen-avoidance mechanism in tourist evaluation and the peril of robotization.
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