Will You Work with Us to Design a Robot? Boys’ and Girls’ Choices of Anthropomorphic Robots According to Their Gender

This study aimed to examine whether boys and girls demonstrate inclinations that drive them to select interactions with humanoid robots that share psychological and physical similarities with them and display gender characteristics aligning with their own. Forty-four students, aged 10 to 13, from two distinct primary school classes, engaged in a study where they interacted in a CAVE with a simulated humanoid robot with a gender of their choice, selected between male or female at the beginning of the procedure. They were instructed to assist the experimenter in the robot’s design process. Subsequently, participants were assessed for any gender stereotypes. The results indicate that children generally exhibit a preference for interacting with robots of their own gender rather than those of a different gender. Notably, the study suggests that the perceived level of agency assigned to gendered robots may be influenced by the extent of hostile sexism. Specifically, an increase in hostile sexism corresponds to an augmented perception of male robots as possessing agentic qualities. Conversely, a different pattern, only marginally significant, seems to emerge in relation to benevolent sexism, where an increase in benevolent sexism is associated with a heightened perception of female robots as agentic technology.