Title Page

ABSTRACT

Contents

1. INTRODUCTION 9

2. THEORETICAL BACKGROUND 13

2.1. Difference in Stereotypic Lay Belief on Robot vs. Human as the Social Actor (Human or Not in Nature) 13

2.2. Antecedents and Consequences of Human vs. Robot's Social Presence in Marketing Persuasion Settings (Acting Like Human) 15

2.3. Relational Costs of Anthropomorphized Appearance of a Service Robot (Looking Like Human) 20

2.3.1. Social Presence Effect 20

2.3.2. Uncanny Valley Effect 20

2.4. The Impact of a Service Robot with Indistinguishably Anthropomorphized Appearance that Goes Beyond the Uncanny Valley 22

2.5. The Moderating Role of Dispositional Persuasion Knowledge as the Boundary Condition to Social Presence Effect 25

3. EMPIRICAL STUDIES 29

3.1. Study 1: The Impact of Service Provider Type and Persuasive Intent on the Social Presence of Human vs. Robot in Persuasion Settings 29

3.1.1. Supplementary Study: The Structural Difference in Stereotypic Lay Belief on Human vs. Robot as Social Actors with Social and Moral Agency 29

3.1.2. Study 1: Method, Results and Discussion 32

3.2. Study 2: The Negative Impact of Robot Anthropomorphic Appearance in Persuasion Settings: Social Presence Effect and Uncanny Valley Effect 40

3.3. Study 3: The Boundary Conditions to the Social Presence and Uncanny Valley Effect 49

4. GENERAL DISCUSSION 63

4.1. Theoretical Implications 65

4.2. Practical Implications 66

4.3. Limitations and Suggestions for Future Research 67

REFERENCES 69

APPENDICES 75

APPENDIX A. Measures for Studies 1 to 3 75

APPENDIX B. Stimuli for Studies 1-3 78

국문초록 80

Table 1. Persuasive intent as an antecedent of the social presence effect (Study 1, H1) 36

Table 2. Regression coefficients for the mediated moderation model (Study 1, H2) 38

Table 3. Persuasive intent as an antecedent of the social presence effect (Study 2, H1) 44

Table 4. Regression coefficients for the mediation analyses that examine the negative impact of robot anthropomorphism (Study 2, H3) 47

Table 5. Persuasive intent as an antecedent of the social presence effect (Study 3, H1) 54

Table 6. The impact of an indistinguishably anthropomorphized service robot with high persuasive intent (Study 3, H4) 56

Table 7. The impact of an indistinguishably anthropomorphized service robot with low persuasive intent (Study 3, H4) 57

Table 8. The moderating effect of dispositional persuasion knowledge as a boundary condition to the social presence effect (Study 3, H5) 59

Table 9. Ruling out the alternative explanation: The indirect effect of perceived agency and NAR2 on perceived sincerity 62

Figure 1. Conceptual framework for the research model 28

Figure 2. Structural difference in lay beliefs about human vs. robot's innate social presence as the social actor in general (Supplementary Study) 31

Figure 3. The impact of persuasive intent on service quality indices of store attitude and overall brand evaluation via perceived sincerity (H1) 35

Figure 4. The mediated moderation model that examines the interaction effect of persuasive intent and service provider type (H2) 37

Figure 5. The results of the simple slope analysis on the interaction effect of persuasive intent x service provider type on perceived sincerity 39

Figure 6. The negative impact of robot anthropomorphic appearance (high vs. low) in terms of perceived sincerity and uncanny service experience (H3) 45

Figure 7. The moderating effect of dispositional persuasion knowledge as a boundary condition to the social presence effect (H5) 58

Figure 8. The Impact of dispositional persuasion knowledge x robot anthropomorphic appearance interaction on perceived sincerity (Study 3, H5) 60