The Effect of Robot Anthropomorphism on Customers' Attention Activation and Satisfaction

Abstract

Prior research has predominantly focused on how interacting with anthropomorphic robots might affect customers' psychological processes and behaviors, wherein this stream of research has presented some inconsistent findings regarding its effectiveness in the service context. This research aims at taking a novel angle by illuminating on the arousal-based reaction among customers, and their subsequent satisfaction. Grounded in selective attention theory, this research develops a model in which robot anthropomorphism activates customers' attention, which in turn cultivates heightened customer satisfaction. Findings across an eye-tracking experiment (Study 1), a field survey study (Study 2), and a scenario-based experiment (Study 3) converge to provide support to the hypotheses. The results of our mixed-method approach shed new light on how robot anthropomorphism might impact customer satisfaction. Importantly, this study contributes to the research of service robot in the consumer psychology literature by disentangling an attention (arousal)-based mechanism through which robot anthropomorphism might induce positive customer outcomes. Meanwhile, it simultaneously offers timely and crucial managerial implications for practitioners to better understand the underlying arousal-based influences of digitalizing the service delivery among customers. This research ends with a discussion pertaining to its theoretical and practical implications.