Cohesiveness of Robots in Groups Affects the Perception of Social Rejection by Human Observers

As robots become increasingly part of human social systems, how humans are psychologically affected by machine behaviors in groups such as ostracism and prejudice, becomes criteria for design. Parameters of Robot group can have an effect on the dynamics of robot-robot-human interaction. The cohesiveness of robot groups, termed entitativity, affects humans' willingness to engage with the group and alters their perception of threat and cooperativity. To investigate how group composition affects how people perceive negative social intent from robots, we showed subjects videos of various ways humans are socially rejected by robots under high and low entitativity conditions. The results reveal that when robotic groups are less cohesive, the sense of rejection is greater, implying that humans experience increased anxiety over being rejected by more diverse sets of machines. Understanding the social consequences of robot group dynamics can assist us in avoiding unanticipated negative affects caused by machines.