Servers wearing personal protective equipment (i.e., gloves and/or masks) and robot servers received increased attention during the COVID-19 pandemic. However, studies evaluating consumer health-risk perceptions and behavioral intentions related to these interventions post-pandemic are sparse. Therefore, based on perceived risk, social servicescape, and cue utilization theory, two experiments were conducted to examine how servers’ appearance-related health-safety cues (e.g., mask and/or glove-wearing) impacted consumers’ revisit intention (Study 1) and to compare the effect of human vs. robot servers with and without health-safety and sanitation cues (Study 2). Both studies included perceived health risk as a possible mediator. Results revealed that mask-wearing servers (vs. no mask and no glove) decreased consumers’ perceived health risk and that perceived health risk mediated the effect of mask-wearing on revisit intention. Further, consumers preferred the human “safe server” (i.e., with mask) over a “clean and sanitized” robot. Findings provide important insights into post-pandemic restaurant consumer behavior.

中文翻译：

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口罩、手套还是机器人？影响消费者健康风险认知和餐厅用餐行为意图的因素


在 COVID-19 大流行期间，佩戴个人防护设备（即手套和/或口罩）的服务员和机器人服务员受到了更多关注。然而，评估大流行后与这些干预措施相关的消费者健康风险感知和行为意图的研究很少。因此，基于感知风险、社会服务景观和线索利用理论，进行了两项实验，以检验服务员与外表相关的健康安全线索（例如，戴口罩和/或手套）如何影响消费者的回访意愿（研究 1），并比较人类与机器人服务员在有和没有健康安全和卫生线索的情况下的效果（研究 2）。这两项研究都包括感知健康风险作为可能的中介因素。结果显示，戴口罩的服务员（与不戴口罩和不戴手套相比）降低了消费者的感知健康风险，而感知到的健康风险中介了戴口罩对再次访问意愿的影响。此外，消费者更喜欢人类的“安全服务器”（即戴口罩），而不是“干净和消毒”的机器人。研究结果为大流行后餐厅消费者行为提供了重要见解。