Designing a social robot for behavior promotion and moderation: a case study for solitary drinking context

Abstract

Social robots are mostly designed to either promote or moderate target behaviors (such as exercise and smoking). However, there has not been much work done on designing social robots that aim to both promote and moderate human behaviors

i.e., proactively encouraging users to engage in behaviors without over-engagement. As a case in which this situation may occur, we choose a solitary drinking context and design a social robot. This robot encourages drinking in an enjoyable fashion as a companion but discourages unmoderated drinking. Our preliminary user study (n=20) reveals that the robot is perceived as a friendly companion, and its human-likeness is partly attributed to the robot’s intervention. Most participants followed the robot’s intervention and perceived the robot as a smart friend due to its interventions and behavior tracking features. We further discuss the design implications for a social robot that provides behavior promotion and moderation.