Paper Number
2040
Paper Type
Complete Research Paper
Abstract
Eye contact is integral to social interactions among humans, signaling attention, building up trust, and ultimately driving human decision-making. As technology is advancing and robots are becoming more human-like, the question arises whether they can gain human trust and ultimately shape human decisions by human-like behavior such as making eye contact. This is especially crucial for the finance industry, where trust plays a major role and so-called robo-advisors establish themselves as a new tool for digital asset management. This research paper investigates the function of an anthropomorphic cue (eye gaze) in the context of a virtual financial advisory setting while following a 2 (averted vs. direct eye gaze) x 3 (human vs. robot-humanlike vs. robot-machinelike) experimental design (N=2,976). The results show that robots’ eye gaze significantly increase peoples’ perception of anthropomorphism, trust and satisfaction in virtual financial advisory. No impact was found on investment behavior.
Recommended Citation
Kaiser, Carolin; Schallner, Rene; Manewitsch, Vladimir; and Fenne, Emma, "The Role of Eye Contact in Human-Robot Interaction: Trust and Decision-Making in Virtual Financial Advisory" (2024). ECIS 2024 Proceedings. 9.
https://aisel.aisnet.org/ecis2024/track19_hci/track19_hci/9
The Role of Eye Contact in Human-Robot Interaction: Trust and Decision-Making in Virtual Financial Advisory
Eye contact is integral to social interactions among humans, signaling attention, building up trust, and ultimately driving human decision-making. As technology is advancing and robots are becoming more human-like, the question arises whether they can gain human trust and ultimately shape human decisions by human-like behavior such as making eye contact. This is especially crucial for the finance industry, where trust plays a major role and so-called robo-advisors establish themselves as a new tool for digital asset management. This research paper investigates the function of an anthropomorphic cue (eye gaze) in the context of a virtual financial advisory setting while following a 2 (averted vs. direct eye gaze) x 3 (human vs. robot-humanlike vs. robot-machinelike) experimental design (N=2,976). The results show that robots’ eye gaze significantly increase peoples’ perception of anthropomorphism, trust and satisfaction in virtual financial advisory. No impact was found on investment behavior.
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