The Application of Social Power in Persuasive Social Robots

The technology of the future will bring an increasing number of robots into our daily life. This has motivated a number of researchers to explore diverse factors to promote social interaction with robots. This PhD project aims at investigating social power dynamics in Human-Robot Interaction. Social power is defined as one's ability to influence others to do something which they would not do otherwise. Different theories classify alternative ways to achieve social power, such as providing rewards, using coercion, or acting as an expert. After conceptualizing social power to allow implementation in social agents, we studied how those power strategies affect persuasion when using robots. Specifically, we attempted to design persuasive robots by creating persuasive strategies inspired from social power.