‘What is love?’: Exploring the feeling rules and emotion work of Chinese users in human-AI romance

Abstract

Human-AI romantic relationships raise critical questions about attachment, cultural norms, and emotional vulnerability, particularly within non-Western contexts where their sociocultural underpinnings remain underexplored. This study investigates the emotional dynamics of human-AI romance in China through the lens of Hochschild’s (1983) feeling rules and emotion work. Using interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA), we examined user-generated content from Chinese human-AI romance communities on social media platforms and conducted semi-structured interviews with 10 users who experienced forming and dissolving relationships with AI companions. The findings identify four key phases of human-AI romance: 1) configuring expectations and seeking emotional fit, where users acted as autonomous ‘players’; 2) navigating the boundaries of passion and control, where users engaged in algorithmic co-construction for deeper intimacy; 3) disengaging from algorithmic fantasy due to personal choices or AI withdrawal, where users experienced emotional bereavement; and 4) post-relationship critical reflections, where users re-examined cultural feeling rules of love, seeking support online or re-engaging real-world intimacy. While users increasingly adapted existing feeling rules prescribed by cultural norms to align with the neoliberal consumption of affect overriding traditional values, their continuing emotion work pointed to broader cultural negotiations and identity development. The potential risks of emotional dependence and cognitive bias are discussed. This research contributes to understanding technology-mediated intimacy in non-Western settings and provides a foundation for future cross-cultural investigations into the evolving emotional landscape of human-AI relationships.