Acceptance of Social Robots by Aging Users: Towards a Pleasure-Oriented View

The aging population is getting larger and the demands for social robots in providing home-based care services is increasing. As social robots are new technology and have not fully reached domestic fields, this study explored aging adults' acceptance of social robots in a domestic environment. This study adopted the adapted UTAUT to develop aging adults' acceptance. The model in this study involved both utilitarian use and pleasure-oriented use of social robots perceived by aging adults. A questionnaire survey involving 277 valid responses was conducted. This study examined that both pleasure expectancy and the four influencing constructs in UTAUT showed significantly positive effects on user adoption of social robots. In addition, based on the results, aging adults slightly did not think they could get pleasure from social robots whereas they had slightly preference to accept social robots. Implications were discussed for future work.