Towards Impactful Human-Social Robot Interaction: Understanding the Effects of Persuasive Strategies and Relational Bonds on Health Behavior Change

Social robots hold significant potential to positively impact people's lives by persuading them to change their health behaviors. Yet, there is limited knowledge on how to effectively design these robots to achieve this goal. This PhD project investigates how persuasive communication strategies and human-robot relational bonds can enhance the influence of human-social robot interactions on health behavior change. This extended abstract outlines the motivation, problem statement, research questions, and research activities (including completed, ongoing, and planned studies) of this project, as well as its expected contributions to the HRI community.