The aim of this paper is to investi

The aim of this paper is to investigate the extent of gendereffects in an area that has not yet received much attentionin HRI: emotional intelligence (EI). While it is clear fromhuman studies that EI is a critical multi-dimensional constructfor social interactions that can affect a wide range of socialdynamics (see the Background Section), there is currently littleto no work in HRI on the effect of emotionally intelligentrobots on human interactants or observers of HRI (there is onlyone recent study on the effects robot EI on human perceptionsof those robots [4] and to our knowledge no interaction studyon robots with EI). Assuming for the moment that people wereto automatically perceive EI in robots and be influenced bythose perceptions, it would be critical for robot designers toconsider these perceptions and their effects. For example, itwould be undesirable if the acceptance of a robot perfectlycapable of performing a service task were diminished simplybecause it comes across as exhibiting low EI in its interactionswith humans. Hence, we not only need to know whetherpeople are likely to assess the EI of robots (automatically)when they observe them, but we also need to know whatfactors can modulate those perceptions.