IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - June 2016 - 61

Descriptive analysis of responses to items
on the Ethical Acceptability of Human-Like
Interaction subscale

Correlates of ethical acceptability for use
In order to identify the predictors of response for the
three subscale factors of the Ethical Acceptability scale,
a series of statistical analyses were performed.
Since the survey was mainly completed online, there
was little control of the behavior of the respondents,
and as a consequence, some participants missed some
questions or did not completely finish the survey. Due to
june 2016

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Percent

21.22%
20.0%

10.0%

6.686%

5.523%

Strongly
Agree

Agree

Nor Agree,
Nor
Disagree

Disagree

Strongly
Disagree

0.0%

It is Ethically Acceptable that Childern Become Attached
to Social Robots
Figure 9. The graphical representation of the responses to
the item: It is ethically acceptable that children become attached to
social robots.

40.0%
33.14%
28.49%

30.0%

18.6%

20.0%
11.05%

8.721%

10.0%

Strongly
Agree

Agree

Nor Agree,
Nor
Disagree

0.0%
Disagree

Regarding the non-human appearance of robots, the
data indicate that a majority of respondents consider it
ethically acceptable for social robots to have a nonhuman appearance, with 66.67% willing to accept an
object-like appearance (see Fig. 12), 63.26% willing to
accept an imaginary-like appearance (see Fig. 13), and
74.85% willing to accept an animal-like appearance
(see Fig. 14).

34.3%

30.0%

Strongly
Disagree

Descriptive analysis of responses to items
on the Ethical Acceptability of Non-Human
Appearance subscale

32.27%

Percent

The distribution of responses to the question, "It is ethically acceptable that, as a result of their therapy, children with autism perceive social robots as friends'' were
analyzed. The results showed a significantly higher percentage of the respondents (46.92%) did not see an ethical problem with the children perceiving the robots as
friends, compared with only 21.7% of the respondents
who did see an ethical problem. A high percentage of
the respondents (31.09%) were undecided on this question (see Fig. 8). Furthermore, a higher percentage of
respondents (40.98%) declared not having a problem
with the idea that children with ASD might develop an
emotional bond with a social robot, compared to a lower
percentage of respondents who considered that it is not
ethically acceptable that children may become attached
by social robots (26.74%) (see Fig. 9).
Regarding the issue of replacing therapists with
social robots for the teaching of specific skills, a significantly higher percentage of respondents (44.19%)
opposed this idea, compared to only 27.32% of the
respondents who agree with using social robot
replacement of therapists for specific skills teaching,
and 20.49% of the respondents who were undecided
(see Fig. 10). For the question regarding the development of robots with human appearance, 55.39% of
the respondents considered that to be ethically
acceptable, while 21.3% of the respondents thought
robots should not have a human appearance. Again, a
high percentage of respondents (23.32%) were undecided (see Fig. 11).

40.0%

It is Ethically Acceptable to use Social Robots that
Replace Therapists for Teaching Skills to Children with
Autism (e.g. Imitation, Social Skills).
Figure 10. The graphical representation of the responses to
the item: It is ethically acceptable to use social robots that replace
therapists for teaching skills to children with autism (e.g. imitation,
social skills).

the missing data, for different items of the survey, different numbers of participants were reported.

Gender
An independent-samples t-test was conducted to compare the Acceptability For Use factor in female and male

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