The influence of people ’ s culture and prior experiences with Aibo 7 on their attitude towards robots

8 Received: 18 November 2005 / Accepted: 27 March 2006 9 Springer-Verlag London Limited 2006 1012345 16 17 18 Abstract This paper presents a cross-cultural study on peoples’ negative 19 attitude toward robots. 467 participants from seven different countries filled 20 in the negative attitude towards robots scale survey which consists of 14 21 questions in three clusters: attitude towards the interaction with robots, 22 attitude towards social influence of robots and attitude towards emotions in 23 interaction with robots. Around one half of them were recruited at local 24 universities and the other half was approached through Aibo online com25 munities. The participants’ cultural background had a significant influence on 26 their attitude and the Japanese were not as positive as stereotypically as27 sumed. The US participants had the most positive attitude, while participants 28 from Mexico had the most negative attitude. The participants from the online 29 community were more positive towards robots than those not involved. 30 Previous experience in interacting with Aibo also had a positive effect, but 31 owning an Aibo did not improve their attitude.