Does Chatbot Language Formality Affect Users’ Self-Disclosure?

What is it about?

The way a chatbot asks people questions can affect the way someone views the chatbot and the kind of answer someone gives to the chatbot. On from this, we investigated the effect of a chatbot using either a formal or casual language style when requesting information from a user.

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Photo by Eric Krull on Unsplash

Photo by Eric Krull on Unsplash

Why is it important?

We find some pros and cons of a chatbot using formal or casual language when asking a user for information. From our two user studies, we found that people may expect a chatbot to use more formal language when it is asking for their sensitive health information, and that people may give higher quality responses to a health chatbot when it uses formal language. Both of our studies also found that people found a chatbot using casual language to be more friendly.