The Impact of Anthropomorphism on Chatbot Performance

In this article, we look at the projective, psychological factors that determine interaction between humans and chatbots (or conversational agents). Our study lies at the intersection of cyberpsychology (the psychological phenomena emerging from human interaction with digital technology) and captology (persuasive technologies). These two disciplines take complementary approaches to chatbots. Whilst one looks at how use of these tools can affect the human mind, the other identifies the interactive conditions which can influence human attitudes and behaviours. Thus we ask which projective mechanisms can be leveraged to make captology more effective. A large quantitative survey (n=1019) was carried out using a selection of four types of chatbot. The majority of respondents projected content of an anthropomorphic nature onto their selected chatbot. Anthropomorphism makes an attachment to the machine possible, facilitating the mechanisms of persuasion and behavioural influence.Yet a majority of respondents did not identify the chatbot in their anthropomorphic projections, leading us to make an original psychoanalytic interpretation, which allows us to put the persuasive power of captology into perspective and, paradoxically, make ethics the vehicle for enhanced performance. Finally, we make recommendations to help conversational marketing and captology professionals improve the perception and acceptability of chatbots.