Does a Reciprocated Hug from a Robot Encourage Self-Disclosure?

Abstract

This paper presents the effects of being hugged by a robot for self-disclosure. In human-human interaction, physical interactions such as hug behaviors are essential ways for communication with close persons. We developed a teddy-bear-like robot that can give reciprocal hugs (i.e., firstly a person hugs the robot and then the robot hugs the person) to people and experimentally investigated its effects toward their self-disclosure behaviors. In our trial, a robot asked participants to give a hug, and then asked them to chat freely with and without a reciprocated hug. In the experiment, the participants interact with the robot at least ten minutes, and additional ten minutes if they want. The experiment results showed significant differences for the amount of self-disclosure among participants.