“Can you tell me about yourself?” The impacts of chatbot names and communication contexts on users’ willingness to self-disclose information in human-machine conversations

ABSTRACT Chatbots provide functional and social support in various contexts. They are often designed with humanlike features. This study examines how chatbots’ assigned names (humanlike vs. neutral vs. machinelike) and communication contexts (functional vs. social) influence users’ willingness to disclose personal information. We conducted a 3 × 2 “between-subjects” online experiment with random assignments of 299 participants. The results showed that a functional communication context elicited greater participants’ willingness to disclose information, but the impact of chatbot names was not significant. These findings provide an extended understanding of the Computers Are Social Actors paradigm and may inspire the exploration of conditional effects in privacy research. The practical implications for context-aware designs are discussed.