A recent study from the University of Southern California and the University of California, Santa Barbara presented students with an animated, talking robot to help them learn do a specific task.
With half of the students, the robot suggested solutions with supportive questions (“how about we do [this] ?”). With the other half, the robot demanded solutions “Do [this] now!”.
The study showed that the group of students instructed by the nicer robot learned as much as 57% more than the others taught by the bossy robot.
The study didn’t test with human instructors. Until then, be a nice manager.
