IKEA effect and empathy for robots: Can assembly strengthen human-agent relationships?

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.