Affiliative or self-defeating? Exploring the effect of humor types on customer forgiveness in the context of AI agents’ service failure

IF 10.5 1区管理学 Q1 BUSINESS

Journal of Business Research Pub Date : 2025-04-10 DOI:10.1016/j.jbusres.2025.115381

Yuguang Xie , Peiyu Zhou , Changyong Liang , Shuping Zhao , Wenxing Lu

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引用次数: 0

Abstract

Service failures of conversational artificial intelligence (AI) agents are common in real-world interactions. How to mitigate the negative impact of AI agent failures and improve customer forgiveness is imperative. In this study, we construct a model of the influence mechanism of affiliative and self-defeating humor types on customer forgiveness. Through four experimental studies (N = 1919), we find that AI agents expressing humor can effectively enhance customer forgiveness during service failures, with self-defeating humor having the best effect. Moreover, affiliative and self-defeating humor types can improve customers’ positive emotion and allow them to experience relief. The positive impact of AI agents expressing humor persisted in the low-severity failure condition but disappeared in the medium- and high-severity conditions. These findings extend the existing literature on AI agents expressing humor and guide online service providers to mitigate and minimize the negative effects of AI agents’ service failures.

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附庸还是自取灭亡？在人工智能代理服务失败的背景下，探讨幽默类型对客户原谅的影响

会话式人工智能（AI）代理的服务故障在现实世界的交互中很常见。如何减轻人工智能代理失败的负面影响，提高客户的宽恕是势在必行的。在本研究中，我们构建了一个亲和型幽默和自我挫败型幽默对顾客宽恕的影响机制模型。通过四项实验研究（N = 1919），我们发现表达幽默的AI代理可以有效地增强客户在服务失败时的宽恕，其中自我挫败的幽默效果最好。此外，亲和和自我挫败的幽默类型可以提高顾客的积极情绪，让他们体验到解脱。在低严重程度的失败条件下，表达幽默的人工智能代理的积极影响持续存在，而在中、高严重程度的失败条件下则消失。这些发现扩展了现有关于人工智能代理表达幽默的文献，并指导在线服务提供商减轻和最小化人工智能代理服务失败的负面影响。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

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来源期刊

Journal of Business Research BUSINESS-

CiteScore

20.30

自引率

10.60%

发文量

956

期刊介绍： The Journal of Business Research aims to publish research that is rigorous, relevant, and potentially impactful. It examines a wide variety of business decision contexts, processes, and activities, developing insights that are meaningful for theory, practice, and/or society at large. The research is intended to generate meaningful debates in academia and practice, that are thought provoking and have the potential to make a difference to conceptual thinking and/or practice. The Journal is published for a broad range of stakeholders, including scholars, researchers, executives, and policy makers. It aids the application of its research to practical situations and theoretical findings to the reality of the business world as well as to society. The Journal is abstracted and indexed in several databases, including Social Sciences Citation Index, ANBAR, Current Contents, Management Contents, Management Literature in Brief, PsycINFO, Information Service, RePEc, Academic Journal Guide, ABI/Inform, INSPEC, etc.