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Article published In:
Interaction Studies
Vol. 17:3 (2016) ► pp.347–369

Why do children abuse robots?

| Ryukoku University, Japan | ATR Intelligent Robotics and Communication Laboratories
| ATR Intelligent Robotics and Communication Laboratories
| ATR Intelligent Robotics and Communication Laboratories
| ATR Intelligent Robotics and Communication Laboratories
| Tokai University, Japan

We found that children sometimes abused a social robot placed in a shopping mall hallway. They verbally abused the robot, repeatedly obstructed its path, and sometimes even kicked and punched the robot. To investigate the reasons for the abuse, we conducted a field study in which we interviewed visiting children who exhibited serious abusive behaviors, including physical contact. We analyzed interview contents to determine whether the children perceived the robot as human-like, why they abused it, and whether they thought that the robot would suffer from their abusive behavior. We obtained valid interviews from 23 children (age range, 5–9 years old) over 13 days of observations. We found that 1) the majority of the children engaged in abuse because they were curious about the robot’s reactions or enjoyed abusing it and considered it human-like, and 2) about half of them believed the robot was capable of perceiving their abusive behaviors.

Keywords: Communication robot, children, abusive behavior, semi-structured interview
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Related topics
    • 2.1Previous research on robot abuse
    • 2.2Why do children exhibit abusive behavior?
    • 2.3How do children perceive robots?
  • 3.Definition of abusive behaviors toward robots
  • 4.Field study
    • 4.1Robot used in the study
    • 4.2Procedure
      • 4.2.1Selection of respondents
      • 4.2.2Semi-structured interview protocol
    • 4.3Study respondents
  • 5.Data analysis
    • 5.1Analysis procedure
      • 5.1.1Label making, grouping, category extraction
      • 5.1.2Validation of categories
    • 5.2Types of extracted responses
      • 5.2.1Perceived human-likeness of the robot
      • 5.2.2Reasons for abusive behaviors
      • 5.2.3Did the children assume the robot was capable of perceiving abusive behaviors?
  • 6.Discussion
    • 6.1Research questions
    • 6.2Design implications
    • 6.3Potential link to human abuse?
    • 6.4Insight for strategy to avoid being abused
    • 6.5Limitations
  • Acknowledgments
  • Note
  • References
Published online: 30 March 2017
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/is.17.3.02nom
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