Research on the effect of Artificial Intelligence anthropomorphism on consumer's acceptance in healthcare

Robots are widely used in many contexts in modern society. However, the use of chat robots in healthcare fails to have a high acceptance among users. This research investigates how highly anthropomorphic chat robots influence users’ intention to accept them in healthcare. The findings of a survey(N=245) are reported in this paper, indicating that in the specific service context, high anthropomorphism is positively associated with high acceptance. Moreover, the groups of gender identity reported to have higher acceptance towards chat robots. Although masculinity does not affect acceptance directly, it positively influences cognitive trust that positively affect users’ intention to accept. Additionally, femininity also influence acceptance of users towards chat robots by affecting cognitive trust. These findings can offer implications to the design of chat robots in healthcare.