Is it true that parents always prioritize educational effectiveness when selecting childcare services? The current study identified the potential requirements of dual-income parents toward social robots’ diverse childcare functions (e.g., socialization, education, entertainment, and consultation). The results revealed that parental attitudes toward robots were made more positive by all the childcare functions of robots except for their educational features. Furthermore, parents’ expectations of childcare functions varied based on their parenting characteristics. Spectral clustering analysis identified distinctive parenting styles (e.g., family-oriented, work-oriented, noninterventional, and dominant), and multigroup structural equation modeling suggested that the impact of robots’ socialization function was significant in all parent groups, while other childcare functions exerted limited influence according to specific parenting styles. In addition, children’s characteristics were found to alter parents’ preferences for each childcare function. These results offer practical implications for the early adoption of childcare robots through predetermining parents’ acceptability based on their specific parenting characteristics.

父母在选择托儿服务时总是优先考虑教育效果是真的吗？目前的研究确定了双收入父母对社交机器人多样化育儿功能（例如，社交、教育、娱乐和咨询）的潜在需求。结果表明，除了教育功能外，机器人的所有育儿功能都使父母对机器人的态度更加积极。此外，父母对育儿功能的期望因养育子女的特点而异。谱聚类分析确定了独特的养育方式（例如，以家庭为导向、以工作为导向、non- interventional和占主导地位) 和多组结构方程模型表明，机器人的社会化功能对所有父母群体的影响都是显着的，而其他育儿功能根据特定的养育方式影响有限。此外，发现儿童的特征会改变父母对每项育儿功能的偏好。这些结果通过根据父母特定的育儿特征预先确定父母的可接受性，为早期采用育儿机器人提供了实际意义。