A Personable Robot: Meta-Analysis of Robot Personality and Human Acceptance

For robots to be of use to humans, they first must be accepted. One important variable that might impact this acceptance is a robot’s personality. To date, results of studies examining robot personality have produced mixed results. One method of making sense of these results is meta-analysis. Therefore, to examine the potential relationship between robot personality and human acceptance, the authors conducted a review of the human-robot interaction literature and leveraged this review for use in a comprehensive meta-analysis. In doing so, this study contributes to the literature in three ways. First, this study found that a robot’s personality does appear to influence humans’ acceptance of robots. Second, this letter provides an introduction to meta-analysis and detailed methodology that can be applied by other researchers. Third, it identifies gaps within the existing literature and presents opportunities for future research.