Older Adults’ Perceptions of Supporting Factors of Trust in a Robot Care Provider

Table 6

Personal traits: definitions and examples of factors.

Factor	Definition	Example quote
Material/texture	Is there a preference for the material or texture or temperature of the robot that would influence trust	“Have warm hands. Definitely. I can only picture this metal concoction in my mind. I just can’t conceive me going through that”
General appearance	Is there any preference for the appearance of the care provider that would influence trust	“You wouldn’t want anything, just like you wouldn’t want anything in your house ugly looking, you’d want something maybe streamlined. Like a car, whatever, like a wheelchair sometime(s) they make them- or cane people, they have colored ones. You’d want something that has a nice appearance to it”
Companionable	Is the care provider friendly and sociable and likes people	“That it would be friendly and be, I don’t know how much personality they have… whatever is programed into him I guess. But … I would want him to get along with baby dog if it will”
Congruence of care provider values	Do they have the same set of values as the older adult	“I feel like that for me to trust him, he has to have good values like I do”
Benevolence/kind	Are they a caring person/are they doing the task because they care about the older adult	“, I feel like that for me to trust him, he has to…really show me that he wants to help me”
Manner of dress	Is the care provider dressed in a way suitable to the older adult; what they are actually wearing	“If it’s for me only, being dressed as a female in some variety … even if it is some pant suit”