201. Are we behaviorally immune to COVID-19 through robots?
- Author
-
Xiling Xiong, IpKin Anthony Wong, and Fiona X. Yang
- Subjects
Mediation (statistics) ,Subconscious ,Mechanism (biology) ,Robot ,media_common.quotation_subject ,Context (language use) ,Development ,Service provider ,Moderation ,Article ,Tourism, Leisure and Hospitality Management ,Hotel evaluation ,Pandemic ,Behavioral immune system ,Psychology ,Social psychology ,Tourism ,media_common ,COVID - Abstract
In the context of the health risks of the COVID-19 pandemic, tourists' choices have shifted to reflect a subconscious psychological mechanism - the behavioral immune system - that facilitates human organisms to better identify plausible threats to ones' health through environment cues. This research draws upon this theoretical lens to assess tourists' pre-trip hotel evaluation in two 2 × 2 between-subject experiments. Experiment 1 (robot vs. human) tested the service provider's effect on hotel selection evaluation through the mediation of sense of control and the moderation of pandemic risk. Experiment 2 examined this chain of relationship through the moderation of hotel type. This research contributes to the literature by underscoring the pathogen-avoidance mechanism in tourist evaluation and the peril of robotization.
- Published
- 2021