Bullying in early childhood remains an underexplored challenge despite its early manifestation and lasting impact. Social stories are a proven tool to teach appropriate behavior in young children. Social robots as storytellers offer an engaging medium, i.a. for children, for such interventions due to their embodied, interactive capabilities. This paper investigates the potential of a robot telling a social story as an anti-bullying intervention. Across two studies, we compared storytelling with an embodied robotic storyteller to a loudspeaker (Study I) and linear versus interactive robotic storytelling (Study II). Results from Study I showed that while story recognition and transportation did not differ significantly, robotic storytelling elicited significantly more empathy. Study II revealed that interactivity notably improved bullying awareness, though it did not affect empathy or transportation. These findings suggest that robotic storytelling - especially when interactive - can be an effective, engaging tool for early bullying interventions.

In this repository, the supplemental material to the studies, namely the story's text and the utilized questionnaires alongside the respective answer options, are provided.