Journal
PSYCHOLOGY & MARKETING
Volume 38, Issue 12, Pages 2357-2376Publisher
WILEY
DOI: 10.1002/mar.21532
Keywords
artificial intelligence; competence; frontline services; human-likeness; need for social interaction; robots; social categorization theory; warmth
Categories
Funding
- Gobierno de Aragon [S20_20R]
- Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovacion y Universidades [PID2019-105468RB-I00]
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This study found that the human-likeness of robots has a positive impact on service value expectations, with perceived competence mainly influencing utilitarian expectations and perceived warmth affecting relational expectations. Contrary to theoretical predictions, the influence of a robot's warmth on service value expectations is more significant for customers with lower social interaction needs.
Because of continuous improvements in their underlying technologies, customers perceive frontline robots as social actors with a high level of humanness, both in appearance and behavior. Advancing from mere theoretical contributions to this study field, this article proposes and empirically validates the humanness-value-loyalty model (HVL model). This study analyzes to what extent robots' perceived physical human-likeness, perceived competence, and perceived warmth affect customers' service value expectations and, subsequently, their loyalty intentions. Following two pretests to select the most suitable robots and ensure scenario realism, data were collected by means of a vignette experimental study and analyzed using the partial least squares method. The results reveal that human-likeness positively affects four dimensions of service value expectations. Perceived competence of the robot influences mainly utilitarian expectations (i.e., functional and monetary value), while perceived warmth influences relational expectations (i.e., emotional value). Interestingly, and contrary to theoretical predictions, the influence of the robot's warmth on service value expectations is more pronounced for customers with a lower need for social interaction. In sum, this study contributes to a better understanding of customers' reactions to artificial intelligence-enabled technologies with humanized cognitive capabilities and also suggests interesting research avenues to advance on this emerging field.
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