Why having emotional attachments to robots at work can boost team performance

"For example, robots are machines which record their interactions with others," says senior author Lionel Robert, an associate professor of information and a member of the Michigan Robotics Institute. "Humans that believe they can trust robots in the same way that trust their human coworkers might forget about the video cameras in robots and say or engage in behaviors that might be viewed as unacceptable by the company.