Emotional contagion in human-robot interaction

Emotional contagion is particularly important in face-to-face interaction, and hospitality industry is no exception. Given that emotion is contagious, its effects in human-robot interaction remain largely unknown. This paper takes Sophia, the first humanoid robot that can display emotions, as a reference point, and investigates the emotional effect on online users’ conative reactions. The results demonstrated that the expression of fear and disgust serves as the influential factors in affecting interests and engagements. Nevertheless, emotional contagion still deserves further exploration. Overall, this research contributes to the existing body of literature related to humanlike service robot, emotional contagion, and human-robot interaction.