A hug from a robot encourages prosocial behavior

Abstract

This paper presents the effects of being hugged by a robot to encourage prosocial behaviors. In human-human interaction, touches including hugs are essential for communication with others. Touches also show interesting effects, including the “Midas touch,” which encourages prosocial behaviors from the people who have been touched. Previous research demonstrated that people who touched a robot experienced positive impressions of it without clarifying whether being hugged by a robot causes the Midas touch effect, i.e., positively influences engagement in prosocial behaviors. We developed a huge, teddy-bear-like robot that can give reciprocal hugs to people and experimentally investigated its effects on their behaviors. In the experiment, a robot first asked participants to give a hug and then asked them to make charitable donations in two conditions: with or without a reciprocated hug. Our experiment results with 38 participants showed that those who were hugged by a robot donated more money than those who only hugged the robot, i.e., without a reciprocated hug.