Assistant Professor of Marketing James MoureyScience fiction
is full of stories about robots that become so lifelike that people can’t tell
they’re not human. As our digital products increasingly take on the
characteristics of people, researchers are looking to see whether science
fiction may be morphing into science fact.
“We
are anthropomorphizing more and more of our products,” says James
Mourey, assistant professor of marketing. “The best examples are Amazon’s
Alexa or Siri on your iPhone. The theory we had is that if we make these
increasingly humanized, to what extent do they start potentially replacing
human-to-human interaction? And through a series of studies we show that, yes,
scarily enough, products that do have humanized qualities can fulfill social
needs, like the feeling that you belong, that are typically fulfilled by
interpersonal interaction.”
But
don’t worry—these “robots” are not really replacing your friends and loved ones.
“Most people immediately jump to the doomsday scenario in which we are not
going to be interacting with humans anymore. But what we find is that once you
are told that your device is not human these effects go away.
“While
there’s no replacing people with products,” Mourey says, “tech companies do
need to be aware of the effect that these products can have on interpersonal
relationships.” Mourey and two co-authors published their findings in the Journal
of Consumer Research last January.