15/11/2022
According to the American Anxiety and Depression Association (AADA), anxiety disorders are the most common mental illness in the United States, affecting 40 million adults. According to statistics from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), another common mental illness, depression, affects 16 million adults in the United States.
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When working with mental health professionals, self-disclosure is vital to identify the roots and triggers of mental health problems. Self—disclosure is the process by which a person discloses personal or confidential information to others. This is a meaningful way to relieve stress, anxiety, and depression.
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Meanwhile, self—disclosure is a skill that needs to be developed in practice. We can only practice this skill through constant self-exploration and the courage to be vulnerable.
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To explore alternative ways to practice self-disclosure, a research team from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) studied chatbots and conversational AI as potential intermediaries in the self-disclosure process in a 2020 study.
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Chatbots are widespread in the modern online world. These computer programs interact with people back and forth, for example, in a conversation. Some chatbots are task-oriented. An example is a chatbot of frequently asked questions (FAQ), which recognizes the keywords that a person enters and gives a predefined answer according to the keywords.
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So Dr. Huang's team has created a self-revealing chatbot that can engage in conversation more naturally and spontaneously. The chatbot initiated self-disclosure during small talk sessions. Gradually, he will move on to more sensitive issues that encourage users to self-disclosure.
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To study how the self-disclosure of chatbots can affect people's willingness to self-disclose, the team recruited university students and divided them into three groups. Each group will interact with the chatbot at different levels of self-disclosure, from lack of self-disclosure to low and high levels.
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During the four-week study, the participating students interacted with the chatbot every day for 7-10 minutes. At the end of the third week, the chatbot recommended that students talk to a mental health specialist. The researchers then assessed the students' willingness to self-disclose to a professional.
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The team found that groups who reported themselves to the chatbot reported greater trust in a mental health professional than the control group. The participants felt "confused" when the chatbot mentioned a professional person. In the experimental groups, they thought they could listen to a chatbot and share sensory experiences.
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