FSD3713 Robots and Us Survey: United States, April 2019

The dataset is (C) available for research only (including Master's, doctoral and Polytechnic/University of Applied Sciences Master's theses). The dataset may not be used for teaching, study (e.g. seminar papers, essays) or other theses (Bachelor's theses or equivalent).

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Study description in other languages

in Finnish

Related files

Questionnaire (PDF file, English)

Study title

Robots and Us Survey: United States, April 2019

Dataset ID Number

FSD3713

Persistent identifiers

https://urn.fi/urn:nbn:fi:fsd:T-FSD3713
https://doi.org/10.60686/t-fsd3713

Data Type

Quantitative

Authors

Oksanen, Atte (Tampere University. Faculty of Social Sciences)
Savela, Nina (Tampere University. Faculty of Social Sciences)

Abstract

The survey charted the opinions and attitudes of US citizens towards robots and how interaction changes when a human is replaced by a robot. The data was collected as part of the Robots in Society research project. The project explores interaction processes and societal understanding of human-robot encounters.

First, respondents were asked about their background and personality traits. In the next section, respondents were randomly divided into six different experimental groups. In the trust test, respondents were asked to participate in a fictional game situation with a stranger, a robot or an AI. In addition to the previous information, the name of the opponent was varied. Respondents were then asked to describe the logic of the game and then asked to write the amount of money they had chosen in the open field.

In the second experiment, respondents were randomly divided into three different groups. The respondents were asked to imagine themselves in a hypothetical work situation. The experiment varied the composition of the work team by including one or more robots in the imaginary situation or by describing a work team consisting solely of humans. Respondents were then asked how they identified with this work team. Respondents were then asked to write a short imaginary text about their first day in this new job with the team in question.

After the two experiments, respondents were asked about their previous experiences with robots, as well as their attitudes and self-confidence towards technology and robots. Attitudes towards interacting with robots were explored through an experimental set-up in which the degree of autonomy of the robot (fully remote, partially autonomous or fully autonomous) was varied in the framing of the questions.

The following scales or measures, which also appear as abbreviations in the variable names, have been used in the data: BF = A short 15-item Big Five Inventory (BFI-S) of personality dimensions (personality traits neuroticism, extroversion, openness, agreeableness and conscientiousness), IGI = In-Group Identification: self-definition and self-investment and self-investment and RS = Robot-Use Self-Efficacy RUSH-3. In addition, the employment industries are formed according to the International Standard Industrial Classification of All Economic Activities (ISIC 2008).

Background variables included the respondent's gender, age group, area of residence, type of residence, highest level of education, houdehold's gross annual income, economic activity and industry of employment.

Keywords

artificial intelligence; attitudes; computers; cooperation; group behaviour; intergroup relations; occupational life; workplace relations

Topic Classification

Social sciences (Fields of Science Classification)
Labour and employment (CESSDA Topic Classification)
Information society (CESSDA Topic Classification)
Social behaviour and attitudes (CESSDA Topic Classification)

Series

Individual datasets

Distributor

Finnish Social Science Data Archive

Access

The dataset is (C) available only for research including master's theses.

Data Collector

Oksanen, Atte (Tampere University. Faculty of Social Sciences)
Savela, Nina (Tampere University. Faculty of Social Sciences)

Funders

Finnish Cultural Foundation

Time Period Covered

2019

Collection Dates

2019-04-03 – 2019-04-04

Nation

United States

Geographical Coverage

United States

Analysis/Observation Unit Type

Individual

Universe

United States residents aged 15-94

Time Method

Cross-section

Sampling Procedure

Non-probability: Quota

Respondent panel and quota sampling. The research team recruited respondents from Amazon Mechanical Turk, a crowdsourcing website whose users volunteered to answer surveys. Gender quotas were used to ensure that the gender distribution of the data matched the gender distribution of the U.S. population (U.S. Census Bureau). The final number of observations is 969, from which 20 respondents were dropped by the researcher during the data quality check.

Collection Mode

Self-administered questionnaire: Web-based (CAWI)

Research Instrument

Structured questionnaire

Participant tasks

Data File Language

Downloaded data package may contain different language versions of the same files.

The data files of this dataset are available in the following languages: English.

FSD translates quantitative data into English on request, free of charge. More information on ordering data translation.

Number of Cases and Variables

185 variables and 969 cases.

Data Version

1.0

Related Datasets

FSD3712 Robots and Us Survey: United States, January 2019

FSD3714 Robots and Us, Sentiment Survey: United States 2020

Completeness of Data and Restrictions

For identification purposes, the researcher has categorised age and area of residence.

To prevent identification of respondents, variable (re10) containing open-ended responses to the response option "Other, please specify" were removed from the data at FSD.

Weighting

There are no weight variables in the data.

Citation Requirement

The data and its creators shall be cited in all publications and presentations for which the data have been used. The bibliographic citation may be in the form suggested by the archive or in the form required by the publication.

Bibliographical Citation

Oksanen, Atte (Tampere University) & Savela, Nina (Tampere University): Robots and Us Survey: United States, April 2019 [dataset]. Version 1.0 (2024-01-03). Finnish Social Science Data Archive [distributor]. https://urn.fi/urn:nbn:fi:fsd:T-FSD3713