Marhaba, how may I help you? Effects of Politeness and Culture on Robot Acceptance and Anthropomorphization

How do politeness strategies and cultural aspects affect robot acceptance and anthropomorphization across native speakers of English and Arabic? Previous work in cross-cultural HRI studies has mostly focused on Western and East Asian cultures. In contrast, Middle Eastern attitudes and perceptions of robot assistants are a barely researched topic. We investigated culture-specific determinants of robot acceptance and anthropomorphization by conducting a between-subjects study in Qatar. A total of 92 native speakers of either English or Arabic interacted with a receptionist robot in two different interaction tasks. We further manipulated the robot’s verbal behavior in experimental sub-groups to explore different politeness strategies. Our results suggest that Arab participants perceived the robot more positively and anthropomorphized it more than English speaking participants. In addition, the use of positive politeness strategies and the change of interaction task had an effect on participants’ HRI experience. Our findings complement the existing body of cross-cultural HRI research with a Middle Eastern perspective that will help to inform the design of robots intended for use in cross-cultural, multi-lingual settings.