Do cute language style chatbots make consumers more unethical?

With the rapid development of artificial intelligence technologies, offline retailers are increasingly adopting chatbots with a cute language style to enhance customer service experiences. Although such chatbots have shown potential in improving customer satisfaction, their impact on consumer unethical behavior remains underexplored. This research aims to investigate the influence of chatbots with a cute language style on consumer unethical behavior and its underlying mechanisms. Across four experimental studies (N = 436), the results demonstrate that cute language style chatbots can increase consumer unethical behavior by enhancing the consumer’s moral self-concept. Furthermore, the findings reveal that avatar type moderates the effect of chatbot language style on moral self-concept. Emotional arousal is also identified as a psychological mechanism underlying the relationship between chatbot language style and unethical behavior. These findings not only advance our understanding of the unintended consequences of deploying chatbots with cute features but also offer practical insights for offline retailers in designing and implementing chatbot services.