Older adults' perceptions towards socially assistive robots: connecting trust and perceived sociability

The older adult population is increasing very rapidly. Today, there are more than 46 million older adults aged 65 or older living in the United States, and by 2034, the number of older adults is projected to increase by almost 32 million (Census, 2018). With an increasing population, there is a need to support older adults' quality of life. One of the potential solutions is to use Socially Assistive Robots (henceforth SARs) to support older adults with Instrumental Activities of Daily Living, which allow an individual to live independently (Lawton & Brody, 1969). Upon using SARs for IADL tasks, two constructs of the older adults' acceptance towards SARs need to be acknowledged as they influence older adults' perceptions towards SARs: user trust and user perceived sociability. Several studies (Heerink et al., 2010; Breazeal, 2003; Krejin et al., 2007; Whelan et al., 2018; Lewis, 2018) suggested user trust and perceived sociability influence older adults to accept SARs positively. However, the literature suggests a gap of knowledge identifying the real relationship between constructs of user trust and user perceived sociability. This study was an online survey study aiming to uncover the relationship between user trust, perceived sociability, and intention to use SARs through correlation and regression analysis. The result showed a significant correlation between user trust and perceived sociability. Further, the user trust and user perceived sociability were significantly correlated with users’ intentions to use SARs. Finally, the study's findings indicated perceived sociability and user trust had significant relationships with user intention to use SARs. Thus, these data provide valuable insight: the relationship between sociability and trust, and design considerations towards developing a robot advance the design criteria of SARs widely accepted by older adults.

Name thesis:degree_name

M.S.

Level thesis:degree_level

Thesis

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Community Health

Grantor

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Year dc:date

2020

Author dc:creator

• Rhee, Danniel

Contributors dc:contributor

• Rogers, Wendy A,
• Klonoff-Cohen, Hillary

• socially assistive robot
• older adults
• trust
• perceived sociability
• social characteristics
• intention to use

Statement dc:rights

• Copyright 2020 Danniel Rhee

Language dc:language

en

Handle dc:identifier

http://hdl.handle.net/2142/108629

OAI record oai:identifier

https://www.ideals.illinois.edu/oai-pmh?verb=GetRecord&metadataPrefix=etdms&identifier=oai%3Awww.ideals.illinois.edu%3A2142%2F108629