@inproceedings{Booth:2017:PRH:2909824.3020211,
 author = {Booth, Serena and Tompkin, James and Pfister, Hanspeter and Waldo, Jim and Gajos, Krzysztof and Nagpal, Radhika},
 title = {Piggybacking Robots: Human-Robot Overtrust in University Dormitory Security},
 booktitle = {Proceedings of the 2017 ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction},
 series = {HRI '17},
 year = {2017},
 isbn = {978-1-4503-4336-7},
 location = {Vienna, Austria},
 pages = {426--434},
 numpages = {9},
 url = {http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/2909824.3020211},
 doi = {10.1145/2909824.3020211},
 acmid = {3020211},
 publisher = {ACM},
 address = {New York, NY, USA},
 keywords = {overtrust, piggybacking, robotics, secure access, tailgating, trust},
abstract={Can overtrust in robots compromise physical security? We conducted a series of experiments in which a robot positioned outside a secure-access student dormitory asked passersby to assist it to gain access. We found individual participants were as likely to assist the robot in exiting the dormitory (40% assistance rate, 4/10 individuals) as in entering (19%, 3/16 individuals). Groups of people were more likely than individuals to assist the robot in entering (71%, 10/14 groups). When the robot was disguised as a food delivery agent for the fictional start-up Robot Grub, individuals were more likely to assist the robot in entering (76%, 16/21 individuals). Lastly, we found participants who identified the robot as a bomb threat demonstrated a trend toward assisting the robot (87%, 7/8 individuals, 6/7 groups). Thus, we demonstrate that overtrust-the unfounded belief that the robot does not intend to deceive or carry risk-can represent a significant threat to physical security at a university dormitory.}
}