IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/tbitxx/v41y2022i13p2941-2951.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Don’t send an avatar to do a human’s job: investigating adults’ preferences for discussing embarrassing topics with an avatar

Author

Listed:
  • Che-Wei Hsu
  • Julien Gross
  • Harlene Hayne

Abstract

Disclosing information in help-seeking settings is important, but often, disclosure in these contexts is low due to embarrassment. Here, we examined adults’ views about disclosing embarrassing information to an avatar interviewer. In Study 1, 296 adults were asked to indicate their preference to speak to an avatar or to a human about each of the 41 topics varying in degrees of embarrassment. Regardless of topic, participants indicated a higher preference for talking to a human over an avatar. In Study 2, 50 adults indicated their preference to speak to an avatar or to a human about each topic after they had experience with each kind of interviewer. Again, regardless of topic, participants indicated a higher preference for talking to a human over an avatar. In sum, the present study highlights that for communicating embarrassing topics in help-seeking settings, some people may prefer their own kind over an avatar.

Suggested Citation

  • Che-Wei Hsu & Julien Gross & Harlene Hayne, 2022. "Don’t send an avatar to do a human’s job: investigating adults’ preferences for discussing embarrassing topics with an avatar," Behaviour and Information Technology, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 41(13), pages 2941-2951, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:tbitxx:v:41:y:2022:i:13:p:2941-2951
    DOI: 10.1080/0144929X.2021.1966099
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/0144929X.2021.1966099
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/0144929X.2021.1966099?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:taf:tbitxx:v:41:y:2022:i:13:p:2941-2951. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Chris Longhurst (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.tandfonline.com/tbit .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.