A Unique Candidate Experience : en humanoid social robots inverkan på den sociala interaktionen

Due to the era of robotization and new communication technologies, social robots are increasingly used in different areas of society. This thesis aims to examine the communicative situation between humans and robots from a social psychological perspective. We intend to increase the understanding of what a human-robot-interaction means to the communicative situation. The question that has guided the work is “How do candidates experience interaction and communication with a humanoid social robot during a job-interview in regard to I) the appearance of the robot, II) the robot's interactive and communicative abilities, III) the objectivity of the robot”. With the use of a qualitative method we have analyzed eight semi-structured theme based interviews that form the basis of the research. To answer the research question Asplund's theory of social responsiveness is mainly used. Also, Goffman's theories regarding the presentation of self and Turkle's application of anthropomorphism to social robots are used. The analysis discusses how robots are designed to imitate humans and human conversation. Also, it discusses how the interaction with robots, including new communicative conditions, affect mankind and the society. The results of the study show that there’s a contradiction between robots becoming humanlike and humans becoming robotlike, as both parties adapt to fit into a common responsorium when interacting with one another. The study shows that at the moment robots cannot replace human beings in the studied situation, although they can be a good compliment. The use of humanoid social robots is currently associated with both opportunities and challenges and thus give rise to interesting studies in the future as the technology is developing. (Less)