Eco-socio-botics 2022: Social Robotics for sustainability
Workshop, 16th December 2022
organized by
Ilaria Alfieri, Antonio Fleres, Luisa Damiano
A satellite workshop of the International Conference of Social Robotics 2022 (ICSR2022), 13-16 December 2022
Talk Details:
Robot Nudgers for Environmental Sustainability as Allies to Tackle the Nudge Crisis
Stefano Calboli
University of Minho - Centre for Ethics, Politics and Society, Braga, Portugal
Abstract:The publication of Maier et al. (2022) has shaken the scientific community and policymakers who respectively argue for and rely on nudges’ strength: after adjusting for the publication bias, it seems there is no evidence for nudging power. Although this is a significant blow to the nudge theory, not all is lost. Indeed, as pointed out by Maier and colleagues, “all intervention categories and domains apart from ‘finance’ show evidence for heterogeneity, which implies that some nudges might be effective” (2022).
The challenge, then, is to distinguish between successful and unsuccessful nudges. In this paper, I argue that social robots are critical for meeting the challenge and that social robots for sustainability are a case-study particularly appealing. First, robot nudgers could play a pivotal role in hypernudging, that is, Big Data-driven nudges (cite). Typically, hyper-nudges are applied in digital environments; however, doing so is suboptimal in that users’ traits and choice environments' physical traits affect human behaviors as well. Thanks to their social and physical presence, social robots have privileged access to both environments’ features, such as noise and room temperature, and nudgees' features, being capable of recognizing emotions. Furthermore, robot nudgers can slightly modify the delivery of nudging, for instance modifying the intensity of gaze, warranting a degree of accuracy of intervention and replicability that humans cannot guarantee (MacDorman & Ishiguro 2006).
Second, robot nudgers make it possible to collect data that help us in distinguishing between successful and unsuccessful nudges, regardless of which kind of fail is in place in light of the influential taxonomy of nudges’ failure advanced by Osman and colleagues (2020).
Finally, I point out how social robots conceived to promote environmentally sustainable behaviors, as in the cases considered by Castellano et al. (2021) and Beheshtian et al. (2020), are an ideal test bench to implement the approach outlined; indeed, data-driven sustainability is a well-established approach that can promptly take advantage of the type of data social robots can make available.
References
Beheshtian, N., Moradi, S., Ahtinen, A., Väänanen, K., Kähkonen, K., & Laine, M. (2020). GreenLife: A Persuasive Social Robot to Enhance the Sustainable Behavior in shared Living Spaces. Proceedings of the 11th Nordic Conference on Human-Computer Interaction: Shaping Experiences, Shaping Society. https://doi.org/10.1145/3419249.3420143
Castellano, G., De Carolis, B., D’Errico, F., Macchiarulo, N., & Rossano, V. (2021). PeppeRecycle: Improving Children’s Attitude Toward Recycling by Playing with a Social Robot. International Journal of Social Robotics, 13(1), 97–111. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12369-021-00754-0
MacDorman, K. F., & Ishiguro, H. (2006b). The uncanny advantage of using androids in cognitive and social science research. Interaction Studies, 7(3), 297–337. https://doi.org/10.1075/is.7.3.03mac
Maier, M., Bartoš, F., Stanley, T. D., Shanks, D. R., Harris, A. J. L., & Wagenmakers, E. J. (2022). No evidence for nudging after adjusting for publication bias. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 119(31). https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2200300119
