A new study has found that people would prefer to interact with female robots over male robots working in the hotel industry.
The study from International Journal of Hospitality Management asked 170 people about hypothetical situations involving robots working as hotel service workers.
“People have a tendency to feel more comfort in being cared for by females because of existing gender stereotyping about service roles,” said researcher Soobin Seo. “That gender stereotype appears to transfer to robot interactions, and it is more amplified when the robots are more human like.”
Evidence showed that people who interacted with the female robots said that the experience was more pleasant compared to those who interacted with male robots. Looking more human also gave the female robots an advantage in this study.
Do you think robots will be used in the hotel industry soon? Would you prefer to deal with a human or a robot at hotels?