International Journal of Scientific Research and Engineering Development

Emotion recognition technology (ERT) enables social robots to interpret human emotional states using facial, vocal, and physiological cues, enhancing the quality of human-robot interaction (HRI). While these capabilities promise improved engagement, they introduce ethical concerns related to privacy, bias, consent, accountability, emotional manipulation, and psychological impacts. This literature review synthesizes interdisciplinary research on ERT in social robots, analyzing ethical risks and mitigation strategies. Key issues include algorithmic bias, emotional misinterpretation, surveillance, and dependency, with proposed solutions encompassing transparent design, participatory governance, and regulatory frameworks. Findings emphasize the necessity of human-centered development and oversight to ensure socially and ethically responsible deployment of emotion-aware robots.Recent advancements in multimodal affect detection, including transformer-based architectures and real-time edge processing, have significantly increased the deployment feasibility of ERT in everyday environments. However, improvements in technical capability have outpaced ethical standardization, intensifying debates over emotional data ownership, regulatory compliance, and algorithmic fairness.

Atchaya.C, Thanga Anitha.R, Priya Dharshini.G, Sajila,"The Ethics of Emotion Recognition Technology in Social Robots: A Contemporary Literature Review" International Journal of Scientific Research and Engineering Development, V9(2): Page(1032-1034) Mar-Apr 2026. ISSN: 2581-7175. www.ijsred.com. Published by Scientific and Academic Research Publishing.