Diversity Training With Robots: Perspective-Taking Backfires, While Sterotype-Suppression Decreases Negative...

Area of Science:

• Human-Robot Interaction (HRI)
• Social Psychology
• Organizational Behavior

Background:

• Diversity in human-human teams can lead to prejudice and reduced productivity.
• In hybrid teams, robots may be perceived as an outgroup, fostering negative attitudes.
• Such negative attitudes can harm both subjective and objective performance in human-robot interactions.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the impact of a diversity training intervention on robot-related attitudes.
• To assess the effectiveness of the 'enlightenment approach' adapted for human-robot collaboration.
• To explore effects on implicit and explicit attitudes towards robots in the workplace.

Main Methods:

• An experiment was conducted to test a diversity training intervention.
• The intervention adapted the 'enlightenment approach,' focusing on perspective-taking.
• Participants' implicit and explicit robot-related attitudes were measured before and after the intervention.

Main Results:

• Contrary to predictions, robot perspective-taking led to more negative robot-related attitudes.
• Actively suppressing stereotypes about social robots positively influenced robot attitudes.
• The findings suggest a need to reconsider standard diversity training for HRI contexts.

Conclusions:

• Standard diversity interventions like perspective-taking may be counterproductive in human-robot interaction.
• Awareness of existing stereotypes and their consequences may be more effective than perspective-taking.
• Future interventions should account for potential pre-existing aversions towards robots.