Social Influence in HRI with Application to Social Robots for Rehabilitation

Social influence refers to an individual's attitudes and/or behaviours being influenced by others, whether implicit or explicit, such that persuasion and compliance gaining are instances of social influence [1] [2]. In human-human interaction (HHI), the desire to understand compliance and maximise social influence for persuasion has led to the development of theory and resulting strategies one can use in an attempt to leverage social influence, e.g. Cialdini's ‘Weapons of Influence’ [3]. Whilst a number of social human-robot interaction (HRI) studies have investigated the impact of different robot behaviours in compliance gaining/persuasion (e.g. [4]–[7]); established strategies for maximising this are yet to emerge, and it is unclear to what extent theories and strategies from HHI might apply.