IKEA effect and empathy for robots: Can assembly strengthen human-agent relationships?
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View abstract on PubMed
Summary
This summary is machine-generated.The IKEA effect boosts human empathy toward agents, even when assembling robots individually. This finding suggests a way to improve human-agent relationships and acceptance in social coexistence.
Area Of Science
- Human-Agent Interaction
- Social Robotics
- Cognitive Psychology
Background
- Cooperative relationships between humans and anthropomorphic agents (virtual agents, robots) are crucial for social coexistence.
- Enhancing human empathy towards agents can improve human acceptance and collaboration.
- The IKEA effect, where individuals value objects they partially created, is explored as a mechanism to foster empathy.
Purpose Of The Study
- To investigate the influence of the IKEA effect on human empathy towards agents.
- To examine how interpersonal relationships (cooperative vs. individual assembly) moderate this effect.
- To assess changes in empathy levels before and after a shared or individual agent-assembly task.
Main Methods
- Participants engaged in a robot assembly task.
- Two conditions were tested: cooperative assembly of a single robot and individual assembly of separate robots.
- Empathy levels were measured before and after the task, with a focus on the IKEA effect's impact.
Main Results
- The IKEA effect was found to promote empathy towards the agent, irrespective of whether the assembly was cooperative or individual.
- No significant changes in empathy levels were observed from before to after the task.
- The act of building, rather than the collaborative aspect, appears to be the key factor.
Conclusions
- The IKEA effect can enhance human empathy for agents, regardless of the nature of the human-agent relationship during assembly.
- While the IKEA effect promotes empathy, it may not significantly alter pre-existing empathy levels within the timeframe of the task.
- Findings suggest leveraging the IKEA effect in agent design could be a viable strategy to improve human-agent relationships.
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