The Role of Robot Competence, Autonomy, and Personality on Trust Formation in Human-Robot Interaction

2025-03-06

AI Summary

This study investigates how robotic capability, autonomy, and perceived personality jointly influence human cognitive trust, affective trust, and task delegation behavior. Method: A controlled experiment was conducted, employing multivariate regression and moderated mediation analyses, with standardized trust scales and objective behavioral measures of task delegation. Contribution/Results: Results reveal that capability is the primary driver across all trust dimensions (cognitive, affective, behavioral); autonomy significantly moderates the pathways from capability to cognitive trust and from personality to affective trust; personality affects only affective trust; and cognitive—rather than affective—trust directly and positively predicts task delegation. The study uncovers distinct mediating and moderating mechanisms linking trust attitudes to behavioral outcomes, thereby advancing theoretical understanding and providing empirical grounding for designing trustworthy human-robot interaction systems.

Technology Category

Intelligent Robots: Human-Robot InteractionPhilosophy and Ethics of AI: Safety, Robustness & TrustworthinessCognitive Modeling & Cognitive Systems: Affective Computing

Application Category

Responsible Web: Machine-in-the-loop, human agency and autonomyEconomics, Online Markets and Human Computation: Trust and reliance of crowd workers and data experts on GenAIUser Modeling, Personalization and Recommendation: Studies of user behavior, including longitudinal effects of personalized systems

Abstract

Human trust in social robots is a complex attitude based on cognitive and emotional evaluations, as well as a behavior, like task delegation. While previous research explored the features of robots that influence overall trust attitude, it remains unclear whether these features affect behavioral trust. Additionally, there is limited investigation into which features of robots influence cognitive and emotional attitudes, and how these attitudes impact humans' willingness to delegate new tasks to robots. This study examines the interplay between competence, autonomy, and personality traits of robots and their impact on trust attitudes (cognitive and affective trust) and trust behavior (task delegation), within the context of task-oriented Human-Robot Interaction. Our findings indicate that robot competence is a key determinant of trust, influencing cognitive, affective, and behavioral trust. In contrast, robot personality traits significantly impact only affective trust without affecting cognitive trust or trust behavior. In addition, autonomy was found to moderate the relationship between competence and cognitive trust, as well as between personality and affective trust. Finally, cognitive trust was found to positively influence task delegation, whereas affective trust did not show a significant effect. This paper contributes to the literature on Human-Robot Trust by providing novel evidence for the design of robots that can interact effectively with humans and enhance their trust.

Problem

• Examining how robot competence, autonomy, and personality influence trust attitudes and behavior.
• Investigating the impact of robot features on cognitive, affective trust, and task delegation.
• Exploring the interplay between robot traits and human trust in task-oriented interactions.

Innovation

• Robot competence enhances cognitive, affective, behavioral trust.
• Autonomy moderates competence-cognitive and personality-affective trust links.
• Cognitive trust positively influences task delegation behavior.