Extroversion-Introversion Design of Social Robots: The Role of the Mental Model Attribution Process

Abstract

Social robots are becoming more autonomous and they are likely to soon join organizational teams as active team members. As such, their personality design—specifically, their extroversion-introversion personality—matters, as it shapes individuals’ affective reactions. Yet it remains unclear through which underlying cognitive processes robot personality influences task satisfaction in team contexts. Past research efforts to understand these processes resulted in dispersed and conflicting theories. This study proposes a parsimonious conceptual model integrating theories on anthropomorphism and the theory of mind: the mental model attribution process (MMAP). Based on a between-subject animated video vignette study with 401 crowd workers, the MMAP explains how robot extroversion-introversion cues affect task satisfaction. The results show that extroverted social robots elicit higher task satisfaction than introverted robots. This effect is explained by increased anthropomorphism, leading to more agency and experience inference, and higher ascribed robot empathy. By integrating research on anthropomorphism, theory of mind, and robot personality design, this study contributes a parsimonious, empirically testable conceptual model for understanding affective reactions to social robots in a team context.