2026
By Ada Shi
Social robots have attracted growing media attention. However, most people have never interacted with one in real life, and their expectations are largely shaped by science fiction, which tends to paint robots as immoderately idealized. Currently, even the most advanced robots are far from performing flawlessly. As social robots are gradually moving from science fiction into reality, understanding how people react when they err becomes increasingly important. After all, when this happens, people may perceive them less favorably. But can cracking simple jokes change that? In human-human interaction, humor is often used to recover from social failures. Could the same apply to human-robot interaction? To answer these questions, the project conducted a 2x2 experiment with 132 participants and the humanoid robot NAO, examining how performance errors and humor shape perceived warmth and competence. The findings also speak to the MASA paradigm (Lombard & Xu, 2021), a theoretical framework for understanding how people respond to emerging media technologies such as social robots.