Document Type

Article

Source of Publication

Informatics

Publication Date

12-1-2022

Abstract

Chatbots with personality have been shown to affect engagement and user subjective satisfaction. Yet, the design of most chatbots focuses on functionality and accuracy rather than an interpersonal communication style. Existing studies on personality-imbued chatbots have mostly assessed the effect of chatbot personality on user preference and satisfaction. However, the influence of chatbot personality on behavioral qualities, such as users’ trust, engagement, and perceived authenticity of the chatbots, is largely unexplored. To bridge this gap, this study contributes: (1) A detailed design of a personality-imbued chatbot used in academic advising. (2) Empirical findings of an experiment with students who interacted with three different versions of the chatbot. Each version, vetted by psychology experts, represents one of the three dominant traits, agreeableness, conscientiousness, and extraversion. The experiment focused on the effect of chatbot personality on trust, authenticity, engagement, and intention to use the chatbot. Furthermore, we assessed whether gender plays a role in students’ perception of the personality-imbued chatbots. Our findings show a positive impact of chatbot personality on perceived chatbot authenticity and intended engagement, while student gender does not play a significant role in the students’ perception of chatbots.

ISSN

2227-9709

Publisher

MDPI AG

Volume

9

Issue

4

Disciplines

Computer Sciences

Keywords

authenticity, chatbot behavior, chatbot personality, engagement, human–computer interaction, trust, usage intention

Scopus ID

85144714496

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Indexed in Scopus

yes

Open Access

yes

Open Access Type

Gold: This publication is openly available in an open access journal/series

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