O. Sass

Sexual desire tends to subside gradually over time, with many couples failing to maintain desire in their
long-term relationships. Three studies employed complementary methodologies to examine whether
partner responsiveness, an intimacy-building behavior, could instill desire for one’s partner. In Study 1,
participants were led to believe that they would interact online with their partner. In reality, they
interacted with either a responsive or an unresponsive confederate. In Study 2, participants interacted
face-to-face with their partner, and judges coded their displays of responsiveness and sexual desire. Study
3 used a daily experiences methodology to examine the mechanisms underlying the responsiveness–
desire linkage. Overall, responsiveness was associated with increased desire, but more strongly in
women. Feeling special and perceived partner mate value explained the responsiveness– desire link,
suggesting that responsive partners were seen as making one feel valued as well as better potential mates
for anyone and thus as more sexually desirable.

Perceiving another person as responsive to one's needs is inherent to the formation of attachment bonds and is the foundation for safe-haven and secure-base processes. Two studies examined whether such processes also apply to interactions with robots. In both studies, participants had one-at-a-time sessions, in which they disclosed a personal event to a non-humanoid robot that responded either responsively or unresponsively across two modalities (gestures, text). Study 1 showed that a robot's responsiveness increased perceptions of its appealing traits, approach behaviors towards the robot, and the willingness to use it as a companion in stressful situations. Study 2 found that in addition to producing similar reactions in a different context, interacting with a responsive robot improved self-perceptions during a subsequent stress-generating task. These findings suggest that humans not only utilize responsiveness cues to ascribe social intentions to robots, but can actually use them as a source of consolation and security.

Responsiveness to one’s bids for proximity in times
of need is a linchpin of human interaction. Thus, the ability to
be perceived as responsive has design implications for socially
assistive robots. We report on a large-scale experimental laboratory
study (n = 102) examining robot responsiveness and its
effects on human attitudes and behaviors. In one-on-one sessions,
participants disclosed a personal event to a non-humanoid robot.
The robot responded either responsively or unresponsively across
two modalities: Simple gestures and written text. We replicated
previous findings that the robot’s responsiveness increased perceptions
of its appealing traits. In addition, we found that robot
responsiveness increased nonverbal approach behaviors (physical
proximity, leaning toward the robot, eye contact, smiling) and
participants’ willingness to be accompanied by the robot during
stressful events. These findings suggest that humans not only
utilize responsiveness cues to ascribe social intentions to personal
robots, but actually change their behavior towards responsive
robots and may want to use such robots as a source of consolation.