Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Prestige Questions, Online Agents, and Gender-Driven Differences in Disclosure

  • Conference paper
  • First Online:
Intelligent Virtual Agents (IVA 2017)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNAI,volume 10498))

Included in the following conference series:

Abstract

This work considers the possibility of using virtual agents to encourage disclosure for sensitive information. In particular, this research used “prestige questions”, which asked participants to disclose information relevant to their socioeconomic status, such as credit limit, as well as university attendance, and mortgage or rent payments they could afford. We explored the potential for agents to enhance disclosure compared to conventional web-forms, due to their ability to serve as relational agents by creating rapport. To consider this possibility, agents were framed as artificially intelligent versus avatars controlled by a real human, and we compared these conditions to a version of the financial questionnaire with no agent. In this way, both the perceived agency of the agent and its ability to generate rapport were tested. Additionally, we examined the differences in disclosure between men and women in these conditions. Analyses reveled that agents (either AI- or human-framed) evoked greater disclosure compared to the no agent condition. However, there was some evidence that human-framed agents evoked greater lying. Thus, users in general responded more socially to the presence of a human- or AI-framed agent, and the benefits and costs of this approach were made apparent. The results are discussed in terms of rapport and anonymity.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution

Institutional subscriptions

Preview

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

References

  1. Maguire, P., et al.: Helping cancer patients disclose their concerns. European Journal of Cancer 32(1), 78–81 (1996)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  2. Gabler, N.: The Secret Shame of Middle-Class Americans. The Atlantic, May 2016

    Google Scholar 

  3. Bickmore, T., Cassell, J.: Relational agents: a model and implementation of building user trust. In: Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. ACM (2001)

    Google Scholar 

  4. Larson, R.F., Leslie, G.R.: Prestige influences in serious dating relationships of university students. Social Forces 47(2), 195–202 (1968)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  5. Rogers, E.M., Havens, A.E.: Prestige rating and mate selection on a college campus. Marriage and Family Living 22(1), 55–59 (1960)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  6. MacKinnon, N.J., Langford, T.: The meaning of occupational prestige scores. The Sociological Quarterly 35(2), 215–245 (1994)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  7. Bickmore, T., Cassell, J.: Relational agents: a model and implementation of building user trust. In: Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. ACM (2001)

    Google Scholar 

  8. Metzger, M.J.: Privacy, trust, and disclosure: Exploring barriers to electronic commerce. Journal of Computer‐Mediated Communication 9(4) (2004)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  9. Lucas, G.M., et al.: It’s only a computer: virtual humans increase willingness to disclose. Computers in Human Behavior 37, 94–100 (2014)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  10. Moon, Y.: Intimate exchanges: Using computers to elicit self-disclosure from consumers. Journal of Consumer Research 26(4), 323–339 (2000)

    Article  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  11. Bose, R.: Customer relationship management: key components for IT success. Industrial Management & Data Systems 102(2), 89–97 (2002)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  12. Fawcett, P.E., Blomfield-Brown, C.: System and method for providing automated customer support. U.S. Patent No. 5,678,002, Oct. 14, 1997

    Google Scholar 

  13. Gratch, J., Wang, N., Gerten, J., Fast, E., Duffy, R.: Creating rapport with virtual agents. In: Pelachaud, C., Martin, J.-C., André, E., Chollet, G., Karpouzis, K., Pelé, D. (eds.) IVA 2007. LNCS, vol. 4722, pp. 125–138. Springer, Heidelberg (2007). doi:10.1007/978-3-540-74997-4_12

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  14. Burgoon, J.K., Guerrero, L.K., Floyd, K.: Nonverbal communication. Routledge (2016)

    Google Scholar 

  15. Hall, J.A., Harrigan, J.A., Rosenthal, R.: Nonverbal behavior in clinician—patient interaction. Applied and Preventive Psychology 4(1), 21–37 (1995)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  16. De Vault, D., et al.: SimSensei Kiosk: a virtual human interviewer for healthcare decision support. In: Proceedings of the 2014 International Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multi-Agent Systems. International Foundation for Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems (2014)

    Google Scholar 

  17. Gratch, J., et al.: Creating rapport with virtual agents. International Workshop on Intelligent Virtual Agents. Springer Berlin Heidelberg (2007)

    Google Scholar 

  18. Weisband, S., Kiesler, S.: Self disclosure on computer forms: meta-analysis and implications. In: Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. ACM (1996)

    Google Scholar 

  19. Hoffman, E., McCabe, K., Smith, V.L.: Social distance and other-regarding behavior in dictator games. The American Economic Review 86(3), 653–660 (1996)

    Google Scholar 

  20. Howell, M., Love, S., Turner, M.: User characteristics and performance with automated mobile phone systems. International Journal of Mobile Communications 6(1), 1–15 (2008)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  21. Evers, C., et al.: Anger and social appraisal: a “spicy” sex difference? Emotion 5(3), 258 (2005)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  22. Krämer, N.C., et al.: Closing the gender gap in STEM with friendly male instructors? On the effects of rapport behavior and gender of a virtual agent in an instructional interaction. Computers & Education 99, 1–13 (2016)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  23. Buss, D.M., Schmitt, D.P.: Sexual strategies theory: an evolutionary perspective on human mating. Psychological Review 100(2), 204 (1993)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  24. Toma, C.L., Hancock, J.T., Ellison, N.B.: Separating fact from fiction: An examination of deceptive self-presentation in online dating profiles. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 34(8), 1023–1036 (2008)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  25. Buss, D.M.: Sex differences in human mate preferences: Evolutionary hypotheses tested in 37 cultures. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 12(1), 1–14 (1989)

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, USA

    Johnathan Mell

  2. USC Institute for Creative Technologies, Los Angeles, CA, USA

    Gale Lucas & Jonathan Gratch

Authors
  1. Johnathan Mell
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Gale Lucas
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Jonathan Gratch
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Johnathan Mell .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden

    Jonas Beskow

  2. KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden

    Christopher Peters

  3. Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden

    Ginevra Castellano

  4. Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland

    Carol O'Sullivan

  5. KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden

    Iolanda Leite

  6. University of Bielefeld, Bielefeld, Germany

    Stefan Kopp

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2017 Springer International Publishing AG

About this paper

Cite this paper

Mell, J., Lucas, G., Gratch, J. (2017). Prestige Questions, Online Agents, and Gender-Driven Differences in Disclosure. In: Beskow, J., Peters, C., Castellano, G., O'Sullivan, C., Leite, I., Kopp, S. (eds) Intelligent Virtual Agents. IVA 2017. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 10498. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-67401-8_36

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-67401-8_36

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-67400-1

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-67401-8

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation