Culture and anthropomorphism towards robots in middle school students: evidence from human–robot interaction

Abstract Individual differences play a fundamental role in shaping people’s attitudes towards robots. Among them, culture is one of the most deeply ingrained in individuals throughout their growth. Thus, given the crucial role of culture in shaping individuals’ development, the present study investigated whether, and to what extent, individuals’ cultural profile modulates their tendency to anthropomorphise robots, i.e., the likelihood of attributing human-like traits to them. Specifically, we focused on middle school students as one of the main targets of technological artefacts, including robots, in the near future. To this aim, we asked our sample (N = 85) to fill out a set of questionnaires about their cultural profiles beyond their nationality. Then, we adapted two well-established paradigms in experimental and social psychology to capture two dimensions of their anthropomorphism towards robots: (1) the Implicit Association Test (IAT), which allowed us to measure the strength of the association between the concept of “robot” and the attribute “anthropomorphic”; and (2) the Cyberball ball-tossing game, which measures participants’ tendency to socially include robots. Results showed that individuals’ cultural profile, operationalised as participants’ scores at the cultural questionnaires, modulated their tendency to anthropomorphise robots, yet differently based on the kind of task (IAT vs. Cyberball). Interestingly, only some cultural values significantly affected participants’ anthropomorphism towards robots, thus indicating that culture is a multi-faceted concept that deserves attention in future studies in the field of human–robot interaction.