According to a team of scholars from the School of Hospitality Management at Pennsylvania State University, the gender characteristics of a service robot can impact customers’ decisions in the restaurant industry.
For their study, the authors conducted two experiments. In the first experiment, the research team recruited a sample of 239 people and asked them to rate their own sense of power on a scale of 1 to 7. Next, the participants were asked to imagine visiting a new restaurant and receiving a menu recommendation from a service robot. The participants were shown one of two service robots that were identical except for the use of gray or pink colors to portray male or female genders, respectively. After receiving the robot’s recommendation, the participants were asked to rate the robot’s persuasiveness.
Women with a low sense of power were more likely to be persuaded by the male robot’s recommendation, while no meaningful difference was found for men with a low sense of power. Both men and women with high senses of power were found to make their own judgements regardless of the robot’s gender.
Based on these findings, the authors sought out to examine how to mitigate gender stereotypes in robot design and lessen the effect of male robots’ influence on customers with a low sense of power. Since students are typically in subordinate positions, the authors recruited 156 university students to represent a low-power demographic in their second experiment. The authors presented each participant with one of two service robots. Although one had male characteristics and the other had female characteristics, both robots had “cute” designs, such as round faces and big eyes. After interacting with the robot, the participants were asked to evaluate the robot’s recommendation for avocado toast.
Upon analyzing their results, the authors found that “cuteness” mitigated the gender cues found in their first experiment. Both men and women participants responded similarly to both the male and female service robots’ recommendations.
“Rather than choosing between male-like or female-like robots, restaurants can incorporate cute features that help neutralize gender biases while preserving the benefits of anthropomorphic design,” the authors write. “This approach allows restaurants to maintain engaging human-robot interactions without reinforcing potentially problematic gender stereotypes. The strategic use of cuteness in robot design could be particularly valuable in creating an inclusive dining atmosphere.”