Purpose

A humanoid intelligent robot (HIR) possessing a human-like appearance can undertake human jobs, interact, communicate and even transmit emotions to human beings. Such robots have gradually been integrated into people's daily life and production scenarios. However, it is unclear whether and by what mechanism HIRs can stimulate people’s risk perception and its impact on consumption attitudes. Based on the risk decision theory, this study aims to take the social value substitution attribute of a HIR as the incentive and analyzes the influence of social value substitution and risk perception on the customers’ consumption attitudes.

Design/methodology/approach

Three experiments were conducted to investigate the related questions about the social value substitution attribute of a HIR, its impact on risk perception and the customers’ consumption attitudes.

Findings

The results reveal that physical labor, intellectual labor, friendship, kinship and the ego constitute the hierarchical elements of social value substitution. Among them, physical labor and intellectual labor pertain to the dimension of social function value substitution, while friendship, kinship and ego pertain to the dimension of social presence value substitution; social function value substitution and social presence value substitution affect the subjects’ risk perception positively, but the latter arouses a stronger risk perception; the 2 (risk perception of social function value: security/danger) × 2 (risk perception of social presence value: security/danger) condition corresponds to diverse consumption attitudes.

Originality/value

The results enrich the theories of the “cha-xu pattern” and “uncanny valley” and provide reference for the healthy development of the HIR industry.

中文翻译：

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仿人智能机器人（HIR）现状：社会价值水平替代叉须模式的形成及影响研究

目的

类人智能机器人（HIR）具有类似人类的外观，可以承担人类的工作，与人类互动、交流，甚至传递情感。此类机器人已逐渐融入人们的日常生活和生产场景。然而，目前尚不清楚HIR是否以及通过何种机制能够刺激人们的风险感知及其对消费态度的影响。本研究基于风险决策理论，以HIR的社会价值替代属性为激励，分析社会价值替代和风险感知对顾客消费态度的影响。

设计/方法论/途径

通过三个实验探讨了HIR的社会价值替代属性、其对风险感知和顾客消费态度的影响等相关问题。

发现

结果表明，体力劳动、脑力劳动、友谊、亲情和自我构成了社会价值替代的层级要素。其中，体力劳动、脑力劳动属于社会功能价值替代维度，友情、亲情、自我属于社会存在价值替代维度；社会功能价值替代和社会存在价值替代对受试者的风险感知有正向影响，但后者引起更强的风险感知；2（社会功能价值的风险感知：安全/危险）×2（社会存在价值的风险感知：安全/危险）条件对应着多样化的消费态度。

原创性/价值

研究结果丰富了“茶虚模式”和“恐怖谷”理论，为HIR行业的健康发展提供了参考。