Wittmann, MaximilianMaximilianWittmannXie, RunjieRunjieXie0000-0001-9979-1719Kirchner-Krath, JeanineJeanineKirchner-Krath0000-0003-4996-1147Morschheuser, BenediktBenediktMorschheuser0000-0002-7665-89712026-04-172026-04-1720261071-58191095-9300https://fis.uni-bamberg.de/handle/uniba/114759Collaborative robots (cobots) are increasingly introduced in industrial environments, but cognitive and emotional barriers often impede trust, hindering successful human-cobot collaboration. Concurrently, we witness people empathizing with and treating social robots as human-equivalent social actors daily. However, research investigating how to deliberately trigger this leisure phenomenon in industrial contexts to understand its impact on trust beliefs towards cobots remains scarce. In this work, we build on two socio-psychological mechanisms and transfer them to human-cobot interaction to actively promote viewing cobots as partners and investigate the impact on trust, attitude, and behavioral intention to collaborate with cobots. Firstly, we use perspective-taking, which is considered an effective interaction process-based strategy to tackle stereotypes and improve understanding of a cobot's functionality. Secondly, we apply human-like cobot design as an appearance-based strategy to elicit anthropomorphism, which refers to attributing human-like characteristics to non-human entities as a promising factor to foster perceptions of capability and familiarity. Our results of a 2 × 2 experiment (N = 155) in an industrial simulation game indicate that perspective-taking can significantly enhance cognitive trust toward cobots but does not impact emotional distrust. Contrary to our hypotheses, anthropomorphism increases emotional distrust. While we found that perspective-taking to explore cobots’ inner workings supports viewing them as trustworthy partners, a human-like appearance may not be desirable in industrial contexts. People also start attributing negative intents and suspicions to the cobot through anthropomorphization. Therefore, robotic-appearing cobots as diligent servants instead of human-like partners may be preferable for successful industrial human-cobot collaboration.engHuman-robot interactionCollaborative robotsSimulation gamePerspective-takingAnthropomorphismarticle10.1016/j.ijhcs.2026.103807