| Theory |
Field |
Description |
Example |
Application |
| Parasocial relationship theory |
Sociology |
Parasocial interaction (PSI)
describes nonreciprocated audience interactions with media
personae. Parasocial theory describes and attempts to explain imagined social
relationships and interactions with people who are distant from us and who do
not reciprocate individual communication or interest. PSI is the illusion of
interaction during viewing and Parasoical relationships(PSRs) are the ongoing
perceived connection the audience members experience with the media personae
over a longer period of time. Parasocial attachment occurs when the viewer
seeks regular proximity to the mediated experience in order to experience an
affective bond with a selected media persona. |
For example, if you feel like
you’re one of the gang while watching the characters from Friends spend time
together at the Central Perk, you’re experiencing a parasocial interaction.
If you continue to think about Rachel, Chandler, Monica, or one of the other
members of the group after you’ve finished the episode, maybe even reference
their behavior on the show as if they are someone you know, you’ve formed a
parasocial relationship with that Friends character. |
Chatbot might be perceived as a
friend, or if there are videos people may relate to the character. A
parasocial relationship with the characters might be formed. Social media
videos come close to this theory – the person may relate to them and experience
a parasocial interaction. |
| Expectancy theory of motivation |
Psychology |
Vroom’s expectancy theory
assumes that behavior results from conscious choices among alternatives whose
purpose it is to maximize pleasure and to minimize pain; (1) Expectancy –
increased effort=increased performance; (2) Instrumentality – perform well-valued
outcome; (3) Valence – importance on the expected outcome |
Expectancy theory is all about
perception. If you believe effort will increase performance, if you believe
in the importance of the outcome, and if you believe that better performance
will result in a preferred outcome, you — the user, employee, family member,
etc. — will engage. |
If there is a perception that
engaging with a chatbot will eventually give rise to some ideal outcome for
the user, s/he will engage with the chatbot. |
| Uncanny valley theory |
Psychology |
The uncanny valley is a term
used to describe the relationship between the human-like appearance of a
robotic object and the emotional response it evokes. In this phenomenon,
people feel a sense of unease or even revulsion in response to humanoid
robots that are highly realistic. |
In Shrek, the early test
screenings of the film elicited
unexpected feelings of anxiety in children in response to the character
Princess Fiona. She was simply too lifelike, causing kids to feel unnerved
and even frightened, many crying whenever she appeared onscreen. |
We may not want a bot to be
presented as too realistic! Users may
not be comfortable disclosing and talking to the bot if it feels too
life-like. |
| Stimulus‐organism‐response model |
Psychology |
The SOR model describes the
connection between stimuli (such as external factors) that will affect
organisms (cognition and emotions of people) and the response people have to
the stimulus (such as behavior). Stimulus (S) refers to input, which is an
external factor related to the environment. Organisms are things that will
respond to stimuli which include emotions, feelings, and emotions to these
stimuli. Reaction (R) refers to actions and reactions users have to
organisms. SOR adds the organism and the emotional component; it’s not just
stimulus-response. |
Why does one person look at a
cockroach or a lizard and jump and shriek and shouts, while another may
simply feel amused looking at this person thinking, “What is the worst the
cockroach can do?" Why do some people
regularly have an internal conflict when the alarm rings in the morning while
others get up immediately? |
How a person perceives and
reacts to a situation depends on how they process (cognitively and
emotionally) external stimuli. If the bot understands the user (organism),
then it can react to a particular
problem or situation. |
| Theory of reasoned action (TRA) |
Psychology |
TRA suggests that a person’s
behavior is determined by their intention to perform the behavior and that
this intention is, in turn, a function of their attitude toward the behavior
and subjective norms |
For example, if one believes
that recreational drug use (the behavior) is acceptable within one’s social
group, s/he will be more likely to
engage in the activity. |
Providing statistics backing up
a preferred behavior can help change a user’s impression of that
behavior. Similarly, offering stories
or videos can provide social proof of new norms. |
| Theory of boundary regulation |
Psychology |
Privacy regulation theory was
developed by social psychologist Irwin Altman in 1975. This theory aims to
explain why people sometimes prefer staying alone but sometimes like get
involved in social interactions. Altman also believes the goal of privacy regulation
is to achieve the optimum level of privacy (i.e., the ideal level of social
interaction). In this optimizing process, we all strive to match the achieved
privacy (i.e. the actual level of contact at a specific time) with a desired
other person(s). At the optimum level of privacy, we can experience desired
solitude when we want to be alone or enjoy the desired social contact when we
want to be with people. |
Although Altman (1995) proposed
privacy regulation theory well before the cyber age, recent studies have
applied the theory to suggest new ways of thinking about privacy in
socio-technical environments.With information technology, privacy extended
from physical spaces to virtual spaces. Privacy management is a dynamic
mechanism of balance between boundaries as the context changes. The virtual
space created new context. |
Even if a bot is omniscient and
knows everything about a user, does it make sense to put forward that
information when a user expects less interaction / more privacy? How can the AI system know a user’s
preferred privacy stance given at a given point of time a priori to an
interaction? |
| Communication accommodation theory |
Communications |
Communication Accommodation
Theory (CAT) is a general theoretical framework of both interpersonal and
intergroup communication. It seeks to explain and predict why, when, and how
people adjust their communicative behavior during social interaction, and what
social consequences result from those adjustments. |
For example, people adopt the
slang their friends use to fit in. People talk differently using different
words and gestures accordingly to the different group of people like old
people, children, women, men, teens, rich, poor, powerful, weak, etc. |
People behave differently with
friends and family. What is their preferred behavior towards a bot? Can the bot adjust on the fly to different
individuals? What would that look like? |
| Technology acceptance model |
Information technology |
The Technology Acceptance Model
(Davis, 1989), or TAM, posits that there are two factors that determine
whether a computer system will be accepted by its potential users: (1)
perceived usefulness, and (2) perceived ease of use. The key feature of this
model is its emphasis on the perceptions of the potential user. |
The Technology Acceptance Model
predicts that intentions lead to behavior; however, intentions do not always
guarantee behavior. For example, someone might intend to use online therapy
but not follow through. There are several factors that influence the strength
of the relationship between intentions and behavior. |
Make it useful and make it easy
to use and market it as such. Hands-on interactions that ehance perceptions
of usefulness and ease of use should increase adoption. |
| Big five factors of personality |
Psychology |
The five broad personality
traits described by the theory are extraversion (also often spelled
extroversion), agreeableness, openness, conscientiousness, and neuroticism.
It is theorized that certain personality types are more or less open to
perceived use and ease of use in creating a behavioral intention to actually
adopt a technology. |
An analytical type — a
conscientious person — often prefers a lot of information to make a
decision. |
Personalizing based on these
personality traits is an option. |
| Theory of planned behavior |
Psychology |
The Theory of Planned Behavior
(TPB) started as the Theory of Reasoned Action in 1980 to predict an
individual’s intention to engage in a behavior at a specific time and place.
The theory was intended to explain all behaviors over which people have the ability
to exert self-control. The key component to this model is behavioral intent;
behavioral intentions are influenced by the attitude about the likelihood
that the behavior will have the expected outcome and the subjective
evaluation of the risks and benefits of that outcome. |
For example, someone might intend to
meditate everyday but not follow through. There are several factors that
influence the strength of the relationship between intentions and behavior.
Reads similar to TRA. |
Planning is not equal to
behavior. Push notifications could be helpful. |
| Flow theory |
Psychology |
Flow refers to a state of mind
which brings together cognitive, physiological and affective aspects. Flow
experience corresponds to an optimal psychophysical state: participants said
it is like being in the zone, being on the ball, being in the groove. Flow
also inspires peak performances so some use expressions such as ‘everything
clicks’ and ‘experiencing a magic moment’. |
For example, a writer
experiencing a state of flow may become so immersed in their work that time
passes without them even noticing. |
Deep conversations unlikley to
elicit a flow state, especially within a chatbot content. However, recent
advancements with large language models and NLG may challenge this
assumption. |
| Humor theory |
Communications |
Three theories of humor creation
emerge in humor research: (1) Relief theory, which focuses on physiological
release of tension; (2) Incongruity theory, singling out violations of a
rationally learned pattern; and (3) Superiority theory, involving a sense of
victory or triumph. Each theory helps to explain the creation of different
aspects of humor, but each runs into problems explaining rhetorical
applications of humor |
Relief Theory of Humor: We laugh
when something relieves psychological tension by allowing us to face our
fears, release nervous energy, and overcome inhibitions. For example, “The
worst is when you ask someone on a date and they turn you down. ‘Cause what
they’re really saying is, ‘you know what? I don’t even feel like eating a
free meal around you.’” Superiority Theory of Humor: We laugh at the
misfortunes and shortcomings of others because it makes us feel better about
ourselves. Self-deprecating humor by the stand up comedian
Surprise Theory of Humor (also called Incongruity Theory): We laugh when
our perception of a situation suddenly changes. I am a man of my word. And
that word is unreliable.” |
A small number of wellness bots
use self-deprecation to lighten the mood and get around shortcomings in
understanding; other theories may require more wit |
| Theory of mind |
Psychology |
Theory of Mind is the branch of
cognitive science that investigates how we ascribe mental states to other
persons and how we use the states to explain and predict the actions of those
other persons. More accurately, it is the branch that investigates mindreading
or mentalizing or mentalistic abilities. |
Without directly know what’s in
someone’s mind, we can observe actions and speech and come to a (subjective)
conclusion about their intentions, thoughts, and desires of others. |
A bot can prompt the user to
think about other perspectives on an issue.
Additionally, the user may develop an opinion about the intelligence
and personality of the bot. |
| Coolness model |
Marketing |
These days, when we float an
idea for an interface or demo a prototype, the compliment that we crave for
is “This is Cool!” Coolness has become a major design goal for HCI
professionals. If we are serious about building Cool into our products, we
should also be serious about measuring it. With this in mind, we performed a
scientific explication of the concept in order to capture the psychological
essence of “coolness,” covering a number of characteristics such as
trendiness, uniqueness, rebelliousness, genuineness and utility |
Brand love achieved through
product superiority, design, and marketing (e.g., Apple) |
A cool bot? That can mean a lot
of things, but emotional resonance, cognition, humor, etc. likely all play a
factor. |
| Social agency theory |
Sociology |
From one viewpoint, social
agency theory posits that the use of verbal and visual cues, like a more
humanlike than overtly artificial voice, in computer-generated messages can
encourage learners to consider their interaction with the computer to be
similar to what they would expect from a human-to-human conversation. An alternative way of looking at this is
Richard Mayer’s social agency theory of multimedia learning, which proposes
that social cues may prime social responses in learners that lead to deeper
cognitive processing during learning and hence better test performance |
Many companies brand their
chatbots with an avatar / persona to make them feel more humanlike. Note this can be at odds with what uncanny
valley theory tell us. |
Use an avatar, build in memes to
mix text with images and video, etc. Conversational chatbots that seem human
in their interaction can help users deepen their understanding of new
material. |
| Unified theory of acceptance and use of technology
(UTAUT) |
Information technology |
The theoretical model of UTAUT
suggests that the actual use of technology is determined by behavioural
intention. The perceived likelihood of adopting the technology is dependent
on the direct effect of four key constructs, namely performance, expectancy,
effort expectancy, social influence, and facilitating conditions. |
UTAUT summarizes many of the
theories above, incuding expectancy theory, TRA, and TPB. It explicitly
exends TAM. |
A chatbot that fully takes into
account UTAUT will pull on real-time interaction data, demographic data, and
outcomes analysis to guide users in the right direction. |
| Contextual integrity theory |
Law |
Privacy is defined by the
appropriateness of information given the norms of typical flows; ethical
concerns may evolve over time with these norms. |
Patient medical information is
formally governed by HIPAA in the US but also informally by everyday context.
A patient would not expect a dermatologist to ask about mental health issues,
for example. |
How much privacy do users expect
in given contexts from a bot? |
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