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Privacy Concerns in Chatbot Interactions

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Chatbot Research and Design (CONVERSATIONS 2019)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNISA,volume 11970))

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Abstract

Chatbots are increasingly used in a commercial context to make product- or service-related recommendations. By doing so, they collect personal information of the user, similar to other online services. While privacy concerns in an online (website-) context are widely studied, research in the context of chatbot-interaction is lacking. This study investigates the extent to which chatbots with human-like cues influence perceptions of anthropomorphism (i.e., attribution of human-like characteristics), privacy concerns, and consequently, information disclosure, attitudes and recommendation adherence. Findings show that a human-like chatbot leads to more information disclosure, and recommendation adherence mediated by higher perceived anthropomorphism and subsequently, lower privacy concerns in comparison to a machine-like chatbot. This result does not hold in comparison to a website; human-like chatbot and website were perceived as equally high in anthropomorphism. The results show the importance of both mediating concepts in regards to attitudinal and behavioral outcomes when interacting with chatbots.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Similar to [26], conference presentation is available upon request to the first author.

  2. 2.

    Furthermore, we measured mindful anthropomorphism with three items on 7-point semantic differential scales [32]. A univariate analysis of variance showed no significant main effect of type of entity on mindful anthropomorphism (F(2, 227) = 1.16, p = .314).

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Acknowledgements

This study was funded by the Research Priority Area Communication and its Digital Communication Methods Lab (digicomlab.eu) at the University of Amsterdam.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. ASCoR, University of Amsterdam, 1001 NG, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

    Carolin Ischen, Theo Araujo, Hilde Voorveld, Guda van Noort & Edith Smit

Authors
  1. Carolin Ischen
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  2. Theo Araujo
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  3. Hilde Voorveld
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  4. Guda van Noort
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  5. Edith Smit
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Carolin Ischen .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. SINTEF, Oslo, Norway

    Asbjørn Følstad

  2. University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

    Theo Araujo

  3. CERTH-ITI, Thessaloniki, Greece

    Symeon Papadopoulos

  4. University of Leicester, Leicester, UK

    Effie Lai-Chong Law

  5. University of Agder, Grimstad, Norway

    Ole-Christoffer Granmo

  6. University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, UK

    Ewa Luger

  7. University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway

    Petter Bae Brandtzaeg

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Ischen, C., Araujo, T., Voorveld, H., van Noort, G., Smit, E. (2020). Privacy Concerns in Chatbot Interactions. In: Følstad, A., et al. Chatbot Research and Design. CONVERSATIONS 2019. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 11970. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-39540-7_3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-39540-7_3

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