Storytelling and Self-other Integration with Robots: Creation and Validation of Storytelling Stimuli that Induce Social Identification with the QT Robot

In recent years, socially assistive robots (SARs) have gained an important role in areas such as healthcare, education, and rehabilitation, thanks to their ability to support humans without the need for physical interaction. However, for SARs to be effective, it is essential to understand the mechanisms that facilitate their acceptance and the establishment of an empathetic bond with users. Among the strategies to strengthen empathy towards robots, storytelling has proven to be a powerful tool capable of evoking emotions and fostering engagement. The present study aims to (i) validate and select emotional stories that can be used for eliciting empathy toward robots; (ii) identify which elements of storytelling contribute to promoting integration and social identification with a robot. To this end, we created a series of emotional narratives (Valence: positive, negative, neutral), which were narrated by the humanoid robot QTrobot. Participants were asked to evaluate: (i) the emotional valence; (ii) the level of arousal elicited by each story; and (iii) the degree to which they identified with the robot, as an implicit measure of empathy. The results showed that participants confirmed the pre-established classification of the stories, and those associated with higher arousal, regardless of their valence, triggered higher social identification with the robot. In conclusion, the present work confirms and extends the literature on the importance of using emotionally engaging narratives to improve human-robot interaction and foster empathy toward SARs.