Robot adaptiveness effects on human autonomy are mixed: autonomy-supportive behaviours and as-needed assistance help, but mere choice or high interactivity may not¶

Claim · All claims
Evidence · 1 study (2 entries) · review r2–r3 · q2
Currency · newest study 2025 · checked against its sources 2026-10-20 (automated, 2 of 2 entries) · not reviewed by a person

Subclaims¶

q2 i? A personal robot exhibiting autonomy-satisfying behaviours significantly increased human autonomy in a diabetes-related educational game, and as-needed assistance was associated with higher autonomy than no or continuous assistance. → Glawe 2025 q2 i? Offering choice alone had no discernible impact on perceptions of a learning companion robot, and highly interactive support in adult education did not increase human autonomy. → Glawe 2025 (2)

Evidence¶

Glawe 2025¶

Glawe, F., Schmeckel, T., Brauner, P., & Ziefle, M. (2025). Human Autonomy and Sense of Agency in Human-Robot Interaction: A Systematic Literature Review. arXiv. https://arxiv.org/abs/2509.22271 doi:10.48550/arxiv.2509.22271

q2 · i? · review · r3

The review reports Henkemans et al.'s experiment with a personal robot in a diabetes educational game; the robot's autonomy-, competence-, and relatedness-satisfying behaviours "significantly increased human autonomy". A separate work-settings survey found as-needed assistance associated with higher autonomy.

"A personal robot that exhibited human-autonomy- satisfying behaviours (alongside competence- and relatedness-satisfying behaviours), such as offer- ing choices to continue or pause, acknowledging mood, and integrating personally relevant scenarios, significantly increased human autonomy in a diabetes-related educational game [45]."

Glawe 2025 (2)¶

Glawe, F., Schmeckel, T., Brauner, P., & Ziefle, M. (2025). Human Autonomy and Sense of Agency in Human-Robot Interaction: A Systematic Literature Review. arXiv. https://arxiv.org/abs/2509.22271. doi:10.48550/arxiv.2509.22271

q2 · i? · review · r2

The review reports that a social robot deployed as an online learning companion with basic psychological need-supportive behaviours did not affect human autonomy, and that highly interactive support in adult education did not increase autonomy; an adaptive tutoring robot yielded only descriptively higher autonomy.

"Offering choice alone also had no discernible impact on perceptions of a learning companion robot [54]."

Discussion¶

Related Claims¶

• Adult learners expect AI to foster involvement by sparking questions, tapping interests, and providing continuous feedback and effort acknowledgment — related
• Robot exposure affects human autonomy and sense of agency, but no general conclusion about the direction of the effect can be drawn — a broader claim this one bears on
• No clear effect of robot anthropomorphism on human autonomy or sense of agency emerges across reviewed studies — related
• The example-based course increased perceived competence, but neither the course nor the assistant had a significant effect on perceived choice or pressure — related
• Well-designed games can promote persistence in practice and high-quality engagement, and when basic needs of autonomy, competence, and relatedness are met, learning becomes its own reward, reducing the temptation to outsource cognitive effort to LLMs. — related
• Primary school students aged 9–12 perceive a sense of agency—choice over content, personalization, self-directed performance, and task completion—as a core element of fun in learning — related
• A conceptual framework paper reports, citing a meta-analysis (Roesler et al., 2021), that anthropomorphism benefits human-robot interaction with effects varying across task contexts and design implementations — related