The Impact Of Anthropomorphism On Robot Service Experiential Quality

Artificial Intelligence and Robot Service imposes great influence on daily life,owing to the fourth industrial revolution.The balance between tech and touch in service becomes a heated topic in both theoretical and practical area.Hospitality is one of the first industry who puts robots into daily use.Along with that,there are also plenty of robots recruited as employees by restaurants and destinations in China.However,experience of robot service has not been discussed thoroughly,especially considering the significance of hospitableness and relationships of service in Hospitality and Tourism.The main difference between robot service and other services empowered by technology lays on its anthropomorphic design.The impact of anthropomorphism on service experience has been noticed in robot service,but its results remain controversial.Most studies think the impact of anthropomorphism on service experience is positive,but based on the Uncanny Valley some propose the negative impact.The essence of Anthropomorphism is attributing humanlike characteristics,intentions,thoughts or emotions to nonhuman agents.Anthropomorphizing an object means treating it like a human being.On one hand,anthropomorphism would incur positive influence of imposing emotional reactions,satisfying social motivations.On the other hand,it can also produce fear and other negative emotions.The negative impact of anthropomorphism has been noticed in robot service area,but its psychological impact path and boundary have not been explored thoroughly.To fill this gap,this study focuses on the negative influence to explore the specific impact of anthropomorphism on robot service experiential quality.This study firstly discusses the different impact of visual anthropomorphism and verbal anthropomorphism on experiential quality via scenario-based experiment,and then conducts field survey to further explore the mechanism and boundary of the impact of anthropomorphism on experiential quality via perceived risk,perceived warmth and consumer knowledge.Results suggest that anthropomorphism exerts positive impact on experiential quality generally in robot service area.Visual and verbal anthropomorphism imposes different impact on exeriential quality.Perceived psychological risk and perceived warmth mediate that impact.Consumer knowledge not only moderates the direct negative impact on perceived psychological risk but also moderates the indirect one on experiential quality.This study suggests the postive and negative impact of anthropomorphism on robot service experiential quality at the same time,and provides some empirical evidence for the negative impact of anthropomorphism,which can help develop Anthropomorphism Theory.This study also serves the robot service management in Hospitality and Tourism.However,the negative impact is only discussed via the Uncanny Valley.Future study can further discuss the impact via expectancy confirmation theory and cultural background.Except for that,match and mismatch of visual anthropomorphism and verbal anthropomorphism,greetings as well as touch between robot and customers are worth further studying as well.