Effect of Robot’s Listening Attitude Change on Self-disclosure of the Elderly

Self-disclosure of life experiences from the viewpoint of integrity is considered beneficial to the psychological health of older adults. It has been shown that people tend to self-disclose more to people they like. Compared to a consistent invariant reward, an improvement in the rewarding behavior of a person has been shown to have a greater positive impact on an individual’s liking for the person. Based on these previous studies, we explored the psychological impact of self-disclosure of integrated life experiences on the elderly and the effect of the change in the robot’s listening attitude on the elderly’s self-disclosure. We conducted an experiment in which 38 elderly participants were asked to self-disclose their life experiences to a robot for approximately 20 min. The participants interacted with either a robot with a consistently positive listening attitude or a robot that initially had a neutral listening attitude that changed to a positive listening attitude. The results showed that self-disclosure of integrated life experiences to the robot had a psychological impact on improving self-esteem. In addition, changes in the robot’s listening attitude were found to promote self-disclosure and enhance its impact on self-esteem.

Social Robots Outdo the Not-So-Social Media for Self-Disclosure: Safe Machines Preferred to Unsafe Humans?

COVID-19 may not be a ‘youth disease’ but it nevertheless impacts the life of young people dramatically, loneliness and a negative mood being an unexpected additional pandemic. Many young people rely on social media for their feeling of connectedness with others. However, social media is suggested to have many negative effects on people’s anxiety. Instead of self-disclosing to others, design may develop alternatives to employ social robots for self-disclosure. In a follow-up on earlier work, we report on a lab experiment of self-disclosing negative emotions to a social media group as compared to writing a conventional diary journal or to talking to an AI-driven social robot after negative mood induction (i.e., viewing shocking earthquake footage). Participants benefitted the most from talking to a robot rather than from writing a journal page or sharing their feelings on social media. Self-disclosure on social media or writing a journal page did not differ significantly. In the design of interventions for mental well-being, human helpers thus far took center stage. Based on our results, we propose design alternatives for an empathic smart home, featuring social robots and chatbots for alleviating stress and anxiety: a social-media interference chatbot, smart watch plus speaker, and a mirror for self-reflection.