Training Social Skills With a Social Robot: An Experimental Study on the Perception of a Virtual Robot's Different Training Styles and Roles

Since robots trigger social reactions as social interaction partners but are less socially complex and intimidating, they may offer a promising way to train young adults’ social skills and improve their social confidence. Since social robots can take over different roles and display different behaviors, two questions arise: Should the robot take over the role of a coach (higher expertise, higher hierarchical level) or a training partner (equal expertise, equal hierarchical level)? Is the training style more appreciated when it is challenging (focusing on shortcomings that can be improved) or encouraging (focusing on successes that should be strengthened)? These two aspects are examined in an online study with 2x2 between-subjects design where participants get to interact with a virtual robot taking over the different training roles and styles. Results show that a robot coach is evaluated more positively than a robot training partner, but otherwise does not lead to any evaluation differences. The challenging in comparison to the encouraging training style, however, leads to clearly negative evaluations of the robot and the interaction with it on various measures. Furthermore, participants’ loneliness was found to have an overarching negative effect on the robot's perceived sociability.