Social Snacking With a Virtual Agent: On the Interrelation of Need to Belong and Social Effects of Rapport When Interacting With Artificial Entities

• In Event: Experimental Studies of Robots and Agents

Abstract

Based on considerations that people´s need to belong can be temporarily satisfied by “social snacking” (Gardner et al., 2005) in the sense that in absence of social interactions which adequately satisfy belongingness needs surrogates can bridge lonely times, it was tested whether the interaction with a virtual agent can serve to ease the urge for social contact. In a between subjects experimental setting, 79 participants interacted with a virtual agent who either displayed nonverbal rapport behavior or not. Results demonstrate that although there was no main effect of rapport behavior on participants´ subjective experience of rapport and on connectedness with the agent, those people with a high need to belong experienced less desire for further contact after the interaction with a virtual agent – but only if the agent displayed rapport behavior.

Authors

• Nicole C. Kramer, U of Duisburg - Essen

• Gale M Lucas, USC Institute for Creative Technologies

• Lea Schmitt, U of Duisburg - Essen

• Jonathan Gratch, U of Southern California