Exploring the Role of Sociability, Ownership, and Affinity for Technology in Shaping Acceptance and Intention to Use Personal Assistance Robots.

The study addresses how to increase acceptance and intended use of personal assistance robots as they enter everyday contexts beyond structured work settings. Acceptance, as willingness to employ a technology, is pivotal for actual use. With service robots increasingly interacting freely with humans, social design factors (e.g., communication, sociability, movement, appearance) gain importance alongside functionality. The work investigates, in a grocery shopping scenario, whether higher task sociability increases acceptance and usage intention (H1), whether higher task sociability elevates preference for anthropomorphism (H2), whether private ownership boosts acceptance and intention (H3) and preference for higher anthropomorphism (H4), whether a sociability–ownership match maximizes acceptance and intention (H5), and whether higher affinity for technology increases acceptance and intention (H6).

Theoretical background highlights that service robots must balance tool-like functionality with human-facing interaction capabilities. Task sociability is a key design factor; preferences for robot anthropomorphism vary by application domain, with ambiguity in the service domain where tasks differ in social demands. Ownership (legal and psychological) can influence attachment and engagement with technologies; psychological ownership is linked to anthropomorphism and may affect acceptance and design preferences. Affinity for technology, comprising cognitive (interest/willingness) and affective (fascination/desire to own) components, is associated with perceived ease of use, trust, and readiness to adopt technology. The matching hypothesis suggests robot sociability and appearance should fit task and context demands; the study tests these relationships for a grocery shopping support robot.

Design: A preregistered, at-home online, 2×2 between-subjects experiment manipulated robot sociability (low vs. high) and ownership (private vs. public), yielding four conditions: high sociability×private, high sociability×public, low sociability×private, low sociability×public. Participants received a written vignette (Appendix A) describing the scenario and manipulation, then completed measures and a morphology choice task. Platform: SoSciSurvey. Participants: N=261 started; 203 completed; 3 excluded for age, final N=200 (64% female, 35% male, 2 non-binary; mean age 25.57, SD=5.46). Inclusion: 18–45 years, fluent in German; compensation via course credit. Measures: - Acceptance: general acceptance of the robot in the assigned scenario (0–100 scale). - Intention to use: single item, 5-point Likert (never to every shopping trip). - Preferred morphology: forced choice between anthropomorphic vs. technical robot depiction (images matched to sociability condition); outcome as choice frequency. - Control variables: grocery shopping habits (frequency/type), tendency to anthropomorphize, affinity for technology (cognitive and affective components). Procedure: After consent and random assignment, participants read their condition vignette, rated acceptance and intention to use, chose preferred morphology, and completed individual differences and demographics. No audio/video was used to avoid rendering issues. Analyses: One-way ANOVAs checked balance on controls across groups. 2×2 between-subjects ANOVAs tested effects on acceptance and intention. Multiple regressions examined cognitive and affective affinity for technology as predictors of acceptance and intention. Chi-squared tests assessed morphology preference differences by sociability and ownership. Correlations explored links to shopping habits and anthropomorphizing tendency.

- Balance checks: No group differences in shopping frequency (F(3,196)=1.723, p=.164, ηp²=.026), shopping type (F(3,196)=0.431, p=.731, ηp²=.007), tendency to anthropomorphize (F(3,196)=0.877, p=.454, ηp²=.013), or overall affinity for technology (F(3,196)=0.328, p=.805, ηp²=.005). - Acceptance: Significant main effect of sociability (F(1,196)=8.551, p=.004, ηp²=.042); low sociability accepted more (M=60.14, SE=2.59) than high sociability (M=48.61, SE=2.95). No main effect of ownership (F(1,196)=0.068, p=.794, ηp²=.000); public (M=54.89) vs. private (M=53.86) comparable. No interaction (F(1,196)=0.472, p=.493, ηp²=.002). - Intention to use: No main effect of sociability (F(1,196)=1.304, p=.255, ηp²=.007); low (M=2.82, SE=0.11) vs. high (M=2.65, SE=0.10) similar. No main effect of ownership (F(1,196)=0.041, p=.841, ηp²=.000); public (M=2.75) vs. private (M=2.72) similar. No interaction (F(1,196)=0.221, p=.639, ηp²=.001). - Associations with shopping habits: Acceptance uncorrelated with shopping type (r=−0.04) and frequency (r=0.05); intention uncorrelated with type (r=−0.06) and frequency (r=0.10). - Affinity for technology: Regression predicting acceptance: affective and cognitive components together explained 18.12% of variance (F(2,197)=21.800, p<.001); affective significant (β=10.942, p<.001), cognitive not (β=2.520, p=.195). Regression predicting intention: 15.82% variance explained (F(2,197)=18.510, p<.001); affective significant (β=0.433, p<.001), cognitive not (β=0.033, p=.651). - Morphology preferences: Sociability condition effect significant (χ²=8.300, p=.004). In high sociability, anthropomorphic preferred (70%) over technical (30%), p<.001 (Bonferroni-corrected). In low sociability, no pronounced preference: anthropomorphic 49%, technical 51% (p>.999). Ownership did not affect morphology preferences (χ²=0, p>.999); anthropomorphic chosen slightly more often in both public (60%) and private (59%) conditions. Preferred morphology did not correlate with tendency to anthropomorphize (r=−0.01).

Contrary to H1, lower sociability increased acceptance, suggesting that in the grocery shopping context participants may view the robot primarily as a tool to handle low-social tasks like transport and localization, aligning with general willingness to delegate low-sociability tasks to robots. However, sociability did not influence intention to use, possibly reflecting a gap between acceptance (potentially interpreted as tolerance) and personal adoption intentions. Ownership (H3, H4) did not affect acceptance, intention, or morphology preferences, potentially due to limitations in inducing psychological ownership via text-only vignettes and the broader shift from possession to access-based services. The hypothesized sociability–ownership fit (H5) was unsupported, again possibly due to methodological constraints and weak linkage between situational factors and perceived robot attributes in an online scenario. In contrast, human-related factors mattered: the affective component of affinity for technology significantly predicted both acceptance and intention (supporting H6), underscoring the role of fascination/desire in adoption beyond cognitive interest. Regarding design, preferences aligned with H2: anthropomorphic appearance was favored when sociability was high, reinforcing a sociability–anthropomorphism match. For low sociability, preferences were split, suggesting individualized or adaptable appearances may be beneficial. Overall acceptance and intention were moderate, consistent with European hesitance toward everyday robotic support, highlighting the need for careful, task-fit social design and strategies that foster affective engagement with the technology.

Personal service robots blend tool-like and teammate characteristics, complicating one-size-fits-all design recommendations. In the grocery shopping use case, lower sociability increased acceptance, and high-sociability contexts elicited preferences for anthropomorphic morphology. The affective facet of affinity for technology was a strong predictor of acceptance and intended use, suggesting market introduction strategies should not only emphasize performance but also cultivate fascination and positive affect. Given mixed morphology preferences at low sociability, adaptable robot appearances may suit diverse users and tasks with varying sociability demands. Future work should test ownership effects and sociability–ownership fit in more immersive, realistic settings with real robots and stronger manipulations of psychological ownership.

- Online, text-based scenario may have limited ecological validity and the induction of psychological ownership; lack of physical interaction (e.g., touch), time/resource investment, and active choice could weaken ownership effects. - Single task context (grocery shopping) and predominantly European, student-aged sample may limit generalizability across tasks, cultures, and age groups. - Measures relied on self-report; acceptance may have been interpreted as tolerance, potentially decoupling it from intention to use. - No audio/video stimuli; robot behavior was not experienced dynamically. - Morphology choices might not fully match participants’ mental models of the described robot.