Anchors or relational risks? Educator and psychologist narratives of attachment in child–robot relationships

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Abstract
Background: As AI‐enabled social robots become more common in schools, children may form strong emotional bonds with them despite robots not being caregivers and lacking the capacities for “true” attachment. Given limited understanding of potential risks and safeguards, professional perspectives are needed to inform responsible design and educational use. Aims: This study explores how educators and psychologists interpret children's attachment‐like (parallel yet different from caregiver‐child ties) bonds with social robots. Sample(s): 123 Greek professionals (62 educators, 61 psychologists) evaluated three vignettes depicting core attachment features, applying human Attachment Theory to child‐robot interactions. Methods: Participants provided written responses to three attachment‐focused vignettes, which were analysed using reflexive thematic analysis to identify recurrent themes in professionals’ interpretations of child–robot bonding. Results: Thematic analysis revealed nine themes: secure bond architecture, robot role negotiation, and balancing potential benefits against risks. Participants emphasised trust, emotional safety, and predictability, while warning against over‐identification and dependency. Personalisation, memory, and responsiveness fostered intimacy but raised also ethical concerns. Strict privacy controls and adult mediation were deemed necessary. Robots were seen as fostering emotional resilience, social scaffolding, and personalised learning, but also as causing dependency, isolation, privacy breaches, and blurred boundaries. Most participants supported a functional alliance model – robots as supervised, goal‐directed learning tools that enhance socioemotional development and transfer it to human relationships, not as attachment substitutes. Conclusions: The Child‐Robot Emotional Bonding Ecosystem framework integrates these insights, showing how design, mediation, and pedagogy shape development. Findings from Greece stress intentional design, adult guidance, and strict ethics to support, not supplant, human growth.

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