Evaluating Biases for Robots Presenting with Perceived National Identities

To investigate whether robots presenting with a perceived national identity would be subject to biases two experiments were run. In both experiments participants who identified as American viewed a robot that spoke to them signaling an American or Mexican or an American or Chinese national identity. In each experiment the goal was to determine whether cues to identity led to biases directed against the robot. The results indicated that when the robot presented with a Mexican, Chinese, or American national identity there was a pronounced bias favoring the American version of the robot but that mixed results were shown for robots presenting with Chinese or Mexican identities. Implications of the results for Social Identity Theory and for the experience of diversity, equity, and inclusion during human interaction with robots are discussed. Further, design guidelines for human-robot interaction are presented based on the results of the two experiments.