Towards transferability of theories on prosocial behavior from Social Psychology to HRI

This paper describes the transfer of theories on prosocial behavior from Social Psychology to human-robot interaction (HRI) in terms of helpfulness shown by humans towards a robot. Theoretical foundations are given, and relevant influence factors for prosocial behavior are defined. The paper provides an overview on how these factors can be transferred to HRI and are implemented in two experimental settings. In a first experiment, situational empathy towards a robot is increased. In a second experiment, similarity is induced by means of emotional adaption to the mood of the user. Results show that helpfulness towards a robot can be increased by this approach, thus, re-evaluating the transferability of theories from Social Psychology to HRI.