Study On Consumption Attitudes Of Humanoid Intelligent Robots Based On The Moderation Of Self-categorization

Humanoid intelligent robots(HIRs),with human-like form,can engage in employment,communicate with people and transmit emotions as humans.HIRs are gradually stepping into our daily life and production.However,it is not clear whether and how HIRs would evoke consumers' warmth and competence.And it also is not clear that the mechanism of its impact on individual consumption attitudes.According to the theory of Stimulus Organism Response(S-O-R),this study considers consumers' self-categorization and the social value substitution of HIRs as external stimulus,takes warmth and competence as the functional state of organism and counts consumption attitudes as response behaviors.Therefore,based on the moderation of self-categorization,the impact of HIRs' social value substitution on warmth and competence can be explored and the differential mechanism of four combinations of warmth and competence on individual consumption attitudes can be discussed.Four experiments are conducted to verify the hypotheses.Subjects,who come from college students,MBA students,EMBA president class,and two date research platforms(credamo and sojump),participate in the situational experiments and questionnaire surveys.Study 1 examines the scale elements and attribution of HIRs' social value substitution.All subjects are required to watch a video and then complete the social value substitution scale.Study 2 aims to test the impact of social value substitution of HIRs on warmth and competence.Subjects are randomly divided into two groups(social function and social presence).They are asked to watch two different videos and answer the scales of social value substitution,warmth and competence in questionnaire surveys.Study 3 investigates the moderation of self-categorization(virtual world attribution & real world attribution)in the relationship between social value substitution and warmth and competence.Based on the second experiment,experiment 3 requires subjects to watch two random sets of pictures(real pictures and cartoon pictures).All subjects are requested to fill in the scales of self-categorization,warmth and competence after browsing the above two sets of pictures.In Study 4,warmth and competence are clustered into four combinations to test the differential impact on consumption attitudes such as trust,hedonic,utilitarian and antagonism.After reading the written materials on Baidu Post Bar,subjects need to complete the experimental requirements for the evaluation of warmth,competence,confidence consumption attitude,hedonic consumption attitude,utilitarian consumption attitude and antagonism consumption attitude.Study 1 identifies that physical labour and intellectual labour belong to the category of social function value substitution,while friendship,kinship and ego belong to the category of social presence value substitution.Study 2 proves that the social function value substitution has a significant positive correlation with warmth and competence and has a greater positive effect on competence.However,the social presence value substitution has a significantly negative correlation with warmth and competence and has a significantly negative impact on competence.Study 3 indicates that consumers' self-categorization has moderated four relationships.Namely,the relationship of social function value substitution and warmth,the relationship of social presence value substitution and warmth,the relationship of social function value substitution and competence,and the relationship of social presence value substitution and competence.Study 4demonstrates the differential impact on four combinations of warmth(high/low)and competence(high/low)on consumption attitudes.Specifically,both high warmth and high competence appear simultaneously,that is,perception 1 will produce the attitude of confidence consumption;both high warmth and low competence appear simultaneously,that is,perception 2 will produce the attitude of hedonic consumption;both low warmth and high competence appear simultaneously,that is,perception 3 will produce the attitude of utilitarian consumption;both low warmth and low competence appear simultaneously,that is,perception 4 will produce the attitude of antagonism consumption.The theoretical contributions of this study are as follows.First,according to Fei Xiaotong's theory of the Pattern of Difference Sequence,the difference sequence pattern of HIRs' social value substitution extends,develops and forms according to kinship(i.e.blood relationship),friendship(i.e.geographical relationship),intellectual labour and physical labour(i.e.business relationship),with “ego” as the center.Second,the Uncanny Valley Theory endows new research value to the relationship between HIRs' social value substitution and consumers' warmth and competence.Third,the application of Self-Categorization Theory is further expanded,which has positive theoretical significance to fully master the moderation of virtual world attribution and real world attribution in specific humanrobot interaction.Finally,according to the Stereotype Content Model Theory,the consumers' warmth and competence form different consumption attitudes inspired by four combinations in two-dimensional space,which will be more conducive to improving the precision marketing performance of HIRs.