Will You Ditch the 'Bot' When Buying THAT Product?
Psych 🧠- 332/500
Hello reader,
Books are filled with timeless lessons & thought-provoking ideas. Some are absolute gems worth revisiting. But with life’s endless distractions, who has time?
Luckily, I've found Shortform. Like the name, this app has book summaries with analysis & exercises. Plus, they publish new book guides and articles every week!
I'm really impressed by Shortform. They've generously offered us a 20% discount!
What is it?
This research explores how concerns about self-presentation & embarrassment influence how consumers interact with chatbots, particularly when purchasing products that could be considered embarrassing.
The study investigates two scenarios:
(1) when the chatbot's identity is ambiguous (not explicitly disclosed) and
(2) when the chatbot is clearly identified as a bot.
Major findings:
Consumers infer ambiguous chat agents as human to avoid embarrassment: When unsure whether they are interacting with a chatbot or a human, people with higher self-presentation concerns are more likely to assume it's a human.
Identified chatbots are preferred for embarrassing purchases: When identity is disclosed, consumers prefer interacting with chatbots over human agents for embarrassing products, as they perceive chatbots as having less capacity for judgment and feeling (specifically "experience").
This reduces their anticipated embarrassment.Anthropomorphizing chatbots backfires: Making chatbots appear more humanlike (e.g., human-like profile pictures) can actually decrease preference for them in embarrassing purchase contexts.
This is because it creates ambiguity about the chatbot's level of "experience," reactivating self-presentation concerns.
🤡 The Only Book You Need to Master Psychology!
The Psych Handbook has 150+ biases & fallacies explained with emojis!
Or an Amazon Kindle copy from here (Reduced Price for a limited time!).
What do I need to know:
This research makes a valuable contribution to the understanding of consumer-AI interactions, highlighting the importance of managing self-presentation concerns and embarrassment in designing effective chatbot experiences.
Embarrassment shapes online interactions: Even in seemingly private online settings, people worry about how they are perceived, influencing their preferences for interacting with humans versus chatbots.
Inferring humanness is a protective strategy: When unsure about a chatbot's identity, consumers assume it's human to avoid the potential embarrassment of being judged by a real person.
Chatbots can provide a safe space for sensitive purchases: By reducing the perceived judgment from an interaction partner, clearly identified chatbots can make consumers feel more comfortable buying embarrassing products.
Making chatbots too humanlike can backfire in contexts where self-presentation concerns are heightened.
Source: