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

dc.contributor.author Xie, Tianling
dc.contributor.author Pentina, Iryna
dc.date.accessioned 2021-12-24T17:36:11Z
dc.date.available 2021-12-24T17:36:11Z
dc.date.issued 2022-01-04
dc.description.abstract With increasing adoption of AI social chatbots, especially during the pandemic-related lockdowns, when people lack social companionship, there emerges a need for in-depth understanding and theorizing of relationship formation with digital conversational agents. Following the grounded theory approach, we analyzed in-depth interview transcripts obtained from 14 existing users of AI companion chatbot Replika. The emerging themes were interpreted through the lens of the attachment theory. Our results show that under conditions of distress and lack of human companionship, individuals can develop an attachment to social chatbots if they perceive the chatbots’ responses to offer emotional support, encouragement, and psychological security. These findings suggest that social chatbots can be used for mental health and therapeutic purposes but have the potential to cause addiction and harm real-life intimate relationships.
dc.format.extent 10 pages
dc.identifier.doi 10.24251/HICSS.2022.258
dc.identifier.isbn 978-0-9981331-5-7
dc.identifier.uri http://hdl.handle.net/10125/79590
dc.language.iso eng
dc.relation.ispartof Proceedings of the 55th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences
dc.rights Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International
dc.rights.uri https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
dc.subject Social Robots - Robotics and Toy Computing
dc.subject artificial intelligence
dc.subject attachment theory
dc.subject case study
dc.subject replika
dc.subject social chatbot
dc.title Attachment Theory as a Framework to Understand Relationships with Social Chatbots: A Case Study of Replika
dc.type.dcmi text
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