Perception of Society’s Trust in Care Robots by Public Opinion Leaders

Abstract

The rapid demographic shift toward a greater percentage of the elderly population increases the need for welfare services. Welfare technology and especially care robots can be regarded as an important measure to counteract such demographic challenges. However, when implementing new technologies, structured information is of immense importance to develop societal trust. Frequently, research addresses trust solely at the level of the end-user. However, trust at the level of opinion leaders and political decision-makers is also relevant as they are catalysts for trust. This study aims to detect the perceived trust level of users from the viewpoint of opinion leaders (politicians, insurance organizations, and media) in the Swedish, Finnish, and German society. Furthermore, this study uses qualitative expert interviews and identifies four trust categories: trust in the health care system, trust in regulations, trust in technology, and interpersonal trust. The findings stress that targeting only the end-users is not sufficient for developing technology trust in society.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the ORIENT project under the JTC 2017 launched by JPI MYBL. The support of the JPI MYBL and the national funders within the JPI MYBL framework is gratefully acknowledged (award no. 16SV7954 by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research, Germany, award no. 2017–02300 by Forte, Sweden, and award no. 318837 by Academy of Finland).

Notes on contributors

Julia Amelie Hoppe

Julia Amelie Hoppe received her Ph.D. degree in social and behavioral sciences 2022 and is research assistant at the chair of Organizational Behavior at the University of Paderborn, Germany. Her research interest is in human-machine interaction and in collaboration at work especially collaboration in teams.

Helinä Melkas

Helinä Melkas is a Professor of Industrial Engineering and Management, especially Service Innovations, at Lappeenranta-Lahti University of Technology LUT, School of Engineering Science, Finland, and affiliated with Centre for E-health, University of Agder, Norway. Her research interest is in digitalisation, welfare technology, impact assessment and innovation management.

Satu Pekkarinen

Satu Pekkarinen is a Senior Researcher in Lappeenranta-Lahti University of Technology LUT, School of Engineering Science, Finland. Her research interests are related to the relationships between technology, services and users, both from theoretical and practical viewpoints. Her research areas include e.g. implementation and use of care robots, and socio-technical transition in elderly care.

Outi Tuisku

Outi Tuisku received her M.Sc. degree in computer science in 2008 and her Ph.D. degree in interactive technology in 2014 from the University of Tampere, Finland. Currently she works as a Senior Lecturer at the Tampere University of Applied Sciences, Finland. Her research interests are in human-computer interaction, especially in human-robot interaction.

Lea Hennala

Lea Hennala (Innovation systems), is a Senior Researcher at Lappeenranta-Lahti University of Technology LUT, School of Engineering Science, Finland. Her research areas include e.g. implementation and use of care robots in elderly care, user-involvement and co-creation of service innovations in both public and private sectors.

Rose-Marie Johansson-Pajala

Rose-Marie Johansson-Pajala received her PhD in caring sciences in the School of Health, Care and Social Welfare at Mälardalen University, Sweden, where she currently is a Senior Lecturer in medical science. Her research interest is in elderly care, with a particular interest in welfare technology.

Christine Gustafsson

Christine Gustafsson received her PhD in gerontological caring at Karolinska Institute in Sweden. She is currently holding the position Associate Professor at Mälardalen University, Sweden at the School of Health, Care and Social Welfare. Her research interest is in elderly care and intellectual disability practice on health and welfare technology.

Kirsten Thommes

Kirsten Thommes is a professor for Organizational Behavior at Paderborn University, Germany. In her research, she focuses on radical shifts in firms' institutional environment and co- creation and collaboration in teams. In her current research, she is especially interested in human-machine interaction and collaboration at work.