Need Satisfaction in Human-Robot Interactions in Public Spaces – A Positive Computing Approach

The use of social robots in public facilities is increasingly being considered to reduce employees’ workload and requires citizens to engage in human-robot interactions. Based on the paradigm of Positive Computing, the motivation to interact with robots can be supported by increasing citizens’ well-being during the interaction. According to Self-determination Theory, this well-being depends on the satisfaction of people’s basic psychological needs for autonomy, competence, and relatedness. However, a lack of research exists on the abilities of publicly used robots to address these needs, particularly regarding diverse audiences. To address this research gap, a field study was conducted in two public libraries (N = 65), in which participants interacted with a social robot that recommended books and read passages from them aloud. Results reveal that people’s general attitudes toward robots were positively related to how well the robot satisfied needs for autonomy, competence, and relatedness and showed that women felt less competent in the interaction than men. Interview data complement these findings by showing that insufficient responses and the robot’s rigid way of interacting are connected to a reduced perception of users’ competence. In contrast, a successful, easy interaction and responses to user input were described as reasons for increased perceptions of competence and autonomy, while relatedness was experienced as a difficult concept to grasp. Overall, these findings show that social robots in public places can satisfy users’ basic psychological needs and that user- and robot-related characteristics influence this satisfaction.