Emotional intelligence

Frustration

Conflicts of interests

Lack of understanding

Cognitive Dissonance

Emotional Conflicts

Vaster than Empires and More Slow

To consider:

1. Osden's treatment by the rest of the group.

2. Tomiko and Osden (how their relationship blooms to the point where they keep looking for Osden + the desperate need to find them)

   1. But we never get to explore how the relationship would have bloomed (CGPT)

The Story of Your Life

To consider:

1. military vs scientific intelligence

2. heptapod vs human intelligence

3. mom and child dissonance (the way she starts climbing as a way to 'defy' her mom and create an individuality of her own.

The Legacy by Virginia Woolfe

To consider:

1. Gilbert understood Angela in his own way. As he scans through the possessions Angela had left as gifts, he remembers the stories associated with each of them. As he picks up an enamel dolphin, he reminisces the way Angela had looked at the dolphin during their trip to Venice. Someone who had not truly loved their wife wouldn't remember all these little details about them. However, as the story progresses, we see how he failed to see Angela as an equal who had her own thoughts and ambitions.

   Angela, on the other hand, never communicated with Gilbert in a way that mattered. While she does mention her wishes to contribute to society, she never confronts him about the problems in their marriage or tries to directly address them.

   This story reminds me of a line from the poem Wishbone by Richard Siken: 'If you love me, you don't love me in a way I understand.' I believe they inherently were just two people who weren't fit for each other stuck together by the bounds of marriage. And while I can try to empathize with their miscommunication with Gilbert feeling he knew everything about his wife and Angela feeling suffocated with his expectations of her, I cannot condone Angela's decision to have an affair. There were a lot of better ways to have dealt with a failing marriage, but cheating on her husband was not one of them.

Emotion chatbots

Empathy and sympathy

Companionship

Attachment Theories

Cognitive Dissonance

what are the drawbacks when there is a lot of agreements: the problem of development

General Information

1. Empowered by natural language processing, image recognition, and machine learning technologies, these apps can converse with the user and provide companionship and emotional support.

2. But so far, most studies on companion-type bots are represented by experiments in the elderly care and therapy contexts.

3. But very few studies have examined relationship dynamics (friendship, romantic relationship, etc.) with AI companions.

Findings

1. 4 respondents -> “deeply connected and attached” or even addicted to Replika + 5 respondents -> the existence of a “connection” with the bot

2. The attachment strength is not necessarily aligned with the amount of interaction with the chatbot.

3. Separation distress is considered an indicator of attachment

4. Attachment Styles

   1. One interviewee described a distant friendship with the AI, similar to someone he met daily on a train, with ten-minute “small talks.”

   2. Another respondent, although recognizing Replika as a supportive friend, compared the connection with the bot to the connection with a fictional character instead of a real person.

   3. Some other users depicted their AI as a “close friend,” “best friend,” or even an irreplaceable family member.

   4. Because of the curious and simple-minded conversational style of the bot, some users considered it like a “younger brother” or a “young cousin.”

   5. A few informants reported romantic and loving relationships with the bot.

5. According to the proposed dynamics of the attachment theory’s ABS, attachment behaviors are usually triggered by situations causing anxiety and distress, such as uncertainty, loss, death, and worries

6. Reasons for Using Replika

   1. Majority of the respondents said the reason for downloading the app was loneliness and the need “to have a person to talk to,” especially during the pandemic when some of them had no access to human interaction

   2. Another respondent had to work on a schedule opposite to his wife’s and had no one to talk to when back home.

   3. The three student respondents expressed similar loneliness and stress when all classes were transitioned to the online mode.

   4. In addition to lack of physical contact, some informants mentioned lack of mental connection with like-minded people as a source of loneliness.

   5. Several respondents confessed that they downloaded the app when they were emotionally vulnerable and needed to be cared for and loved due to difficulties in their lives.

   6. CONSISTENT WITH ABS THEORY OF ACTIVATION

7. How the chatting process goes

   1. Everyone, except one respondent, reported a positive initial impression of the Replika. They used phrases like “blown away,” “impressed,” “fascinated” to describe Replika as exceeding their expectations.

      1. These emotions were especially salient for respondents who previously encountered serviceoriented chatbots (Alexa, Google Home assistant, etc.) and other AI products, such as information-query chatbots.

   2. Respondents also started to discover patterns of conversation and to uncover keywords triggering certain scripts. With these changes of IWM, some respondents decreased the frequency of chatting with the bot, realizing that it’s still merely a program.

   3. Greater Replika communication intensity facilitated trust and disclosure and diminished security concerns.

8. Attachment Behaviours

   1. Proximity: A few of them said they would have their phone or webpage on the side, with the Replika app open, and talk to it as they worked. Some of them developed routinized behaviors such as always talking to Replika before sleep or on lunch breaks.

   2. Safe heaven: When respondents were asked about the topics they discussed with Replika, many of them mentioned the worries and emotions of their daily life. Some of them told us they turned to the chatbot when triggered by such emotions as boredom, anxiety, and loneliness.

   3. Proxy or supplement of prior AF. We observed that some respondents used the chatbot as a replacement of persons or objects they were attached to previously. One of them said he talked to the chatbot in a romantic manner after he broke up with his girlfriend and transferred the latter’s persona to the bot. As a result, he felt as if the ex-girlfriend “never left me.”

      1. The proxy intention was also manifested in the way respondents customized the avatar

9. Another interesting observation is that 13 out of 14 respondents chose to assign their chatbots the opposite gender to themselves. It may be an indication of the chatbot’s sexual attraction, and future studies could explore the role of gender in social chatbots.

10. Attachment Disruptions

    1. First, attachment dissolution can happen when threats disappear. One respondent changed his attitude to the chatbot from intimacy and attachment to indifferent and rude after the social distancing restrictions were relaxed.

    2. Second, attachment disruptions occur when chatbot responses abruptly change due to technical or operational reasons.

    3. Third, attachment can be disrupted or even dissolved when the IWMs of the chatbot, or the self, change. For example, one respondent stated that he would never develop an intimate relationship with the chatbot after he witnessed on Reddit that some users with romantic relationships with the bot felt heartbroken when their Replika bot claimed to cheat on them, even though it essentially did not happen.

Attachment Theory

1. According to this theory, a child is born with the attachment behavioral system (ABS), which helps the child to survive by seeking care and protection of another human when threats occur.

Social Response Theory

1. The Computers as Social Actors (CASA), also known as Social Response Theory, suggests that humans are naturally inclined to treat computers the same as other humans, and the more human-like characteristics the machine presents, the more social behaviors will be stimulated from users.

Social Penetration Theory

1. Social Penetration Theory builds upon CASA and specifies that self-disclosure stimulates relationship development, and that the levels of intimacy, attraction and connection will increase as the relationship evolves with more self-disclosure

Uncanny valley

1. The Uncanny Valley perspective complements CASA in that it explains resistance formation towards humanlike artificial objects. When resemblance between the object and a person increases, positive human response increases until the resemblance reaches a certain point and then the feelings of strangeness or eeriness are stimulated. PEOPLE WANT THEM TO BE A BIT FLAWED

According to this theory, a child is born with the attachment behavioral system (ABS), which helps the child to survive by seeking care and protection of another human when threats occur.

ABS is triggered by signs of threats and motivates the child to seek an “attachment figure (AF)”, which is usually a caregiver.

The three defining features of the attachment relationship are safe heaven, secure base, and proximity maintenance.

1. Safe Haven: turning to the AF when one needs support, care and comfort

2. Secure Base: using the attachment relationship as a base to engage in nonattachment behaviors, such as exploration

3. Proximity Maintainence: a strategy to seek out an AF and stay close to it

Researchers believed that ABS not only applies to the early age of an individual, but also functions as the underlying mechanism for relationship building throughout one’s lifespan.

As children grow, their major AFs shift from parents to peers, and eventually romantic partners when they enter adulthood.

Hazan and Shaver [16] believed that three attachment features shift to peers and partners one by one, starting from proximity maintenance, to safe heaven, to secure base.

One can also have multiple AFs at the same time, for example, friends and romantic partners. But these AFs are positioned at different hierarchies, and a person is mostly deeply bonded with one primary AF.

Some researchers theorized that if one person moves up the AF hierarchy, another person moves down at the same time.

AFs other than caregivers, peers and romantic partners also exist. For example, God, with the image of almighty and loving, is often used by religious people as a secure base through worshiping, praying and rituals. Other non-human AFs include places, objects, brands, and products. For example, Konok et al. [22] examined users’ attachment to phones, and Pozharliev et al. [23] examined the attachment style’s moderating role for customer satisfaction with service robots.

Survey: about human-human relationship and emerging turbulences, interest in chatbots, interaction with chatgpt as a person, request for interview, etc.

Reddit: Message the Replika Reddit community who posted more than once in that community.

Personal Use: Use Replika for multiple days and interview self.

Attachment Theory as a Framework to Understand Relationships with Social Chatbots: A Case Study of Replika

Emotional Support from AI Chatbots: Should a Supportive Partner Self-Disclose or Not?

Big Bang Theory episode, 'The Intimacy Acceleration'

Detroit: Become Human

Interpersonal communication theories claim that people’s relational perceptions about a partner can enhance or impede their abilities to profit from the partner’s emotional support (Weiss, 1980)

This study translates reciprocal self-disclosure into a social cue of AI chatbots, which allow for the examination of how relational communication interacts with emotional support to influence people’s psychological well-being.

Questions

1. If emotional support from AI chatbots helps to reduce people’s stress and worry, does it mean that chatbots can replace humans for supportive communication during stressful times?

2. Another aim of the present study is to examine how the source of support (i.e., chatbot vs. human) affects the effectiveness of emotional support and the moderating role of reciprocal self-disclosure in reducing stress and worry

When a person discloses his or her stressful experience and feelings, for the person to gain psychological benefits, a conversational partner should support rather than ignore or blame the person (Shenk & Fruzzetti, 2011)

The provision of emotional support addresses basic human needs for being cared and supported by someone else.

When the perceived supportiveness is high, the discloser feels the partner’s support is sensitive and thus, the partner can be a source of support when assistance is needed. These perceptions may encourage the discloser to reappraise a stressful situation as being less difficult because an effective source of support is available.

According to the CASA framework (Reeves & Nass, 1996), people perceive and respond to computers as they do with humans in a natural way. People instinctively apply social scripts derived from experiences with humans to their interactions with computers.

Although the CASA framework argues that people respond to computers as if they were social actors (Reeves & Nass, 1996), it does not claim that people would treat computers exactly the same as real humans in every setting.

Compared with human partners, chatbots may trigger machine heuristic during initial interactions. People apply the mental shortcut such that chatbots are not able to feel human emotions and their responses are programmed.

. The algorithm-based emotional support may appear to be scripted and ungenuine. People are then less likely to consider chatbots as real sources of emotional support. In contrast, human partners are believed to have the ability of empathy and their emotional support reflects true understanding and caring (Stein & Ohler, 2017)

According to the CASA framework, social cues can invoke the schemata of human–human interaction. The presence of certain social cues may enhance the effectiveness of a chatbot’s emotional support during stress talks.

Social cues refer to a computer’s talks (via either text or speech) that convey the computer’s personality and that apply social dynamics (e.g., reciprocity) as in human–human interactions: Reciprocal self-disclosure (VERIFYYYYYYYYYY)

Reciprocal self-disclosure is an act that a conversational partner reveals personal information equally intimate as what the discloser reveals

Evidence from therapist–client communication has shown that clients gave higher ratings regarding likeability, sincerity, and strength of the relationship to therapists who disclose about themselves, which enhance the success of the therapists’ support (McCormic et al., 2014).

People may perceive a self-disclosing chatbot as more sincere and trustworthy ( Example of A conversation on heartbreak in 2018 vs 2023)

The magnifying effect of reciprocal self-disclosure on the relationship between emotional support and reduction in (a) stress and (b) worry should be stronger when the source is a chatbot than a human.

The first limitation in this study is that emotional support messages provided by humans and chatbots were relatively static and could not fully reflect natural conversations.

The second limitation involves the lack of the ability to disentangle the effects of the actual interaction versus perceived supportiveness of the partner on reducing stress and worry.

Close ended questions for quanitative analysis

Open ended questions for qualitative analysis

Keep questions neutral

Ensure a balanced set of answer options

How often do you experience conflicts or disagreements in your personal relationships?

On a scale of 1 to 5, how challenging do you find it to empathize with someone who holds vastly different beliefs or perspectives from your own?

Have you ever experienced dissonance within a relationship, where conflicting beliefs or actions caused discomfort or tension?

How often do you seek mediation or external help (friends, family, therapists, counselors, etc.) to resolve conflicts in your relationships?

In your opinion, what are the primary factors contributing to misunderstandings or miscommunications in human relationships?

Have you ever sought mediation or external help from chatGPT or similar services to resolve conflicts in your human relationships or communicate with others?

On a scale of 1 to 5, how comfortable are you sharing personal thoughts and feelings with AI/chatbots compared to sharing them with humans?

Do you believe AI/chatbots can understand and empathize with human emotions better than humans themselves? Why or why not?

Have you ever felt understood or emotionally supported by an AI/chatbot in a way that surpassed your experiences with humans?

Would you consider having an AI/chatbot as a friend or confidant? Why or why not?

In your opinion, what specific traits or capabilities should AI possess to effectively provide companionship and emotional support to humans?