Will you donate money to a chatbot? The effect of chatbot anthropomorphic features and persuasion strategies on willingness to donate

Abstract

This work investigates the causal mechanism behind the effect of chatbot personification and persuasion strategies on users' perceptions and donation likelihood. In a 2 (personified vs. non-personified chatbot) x 2 (emotional vs. logical persuasion strategy) between-subjects experiment (N=76), participants engaged with a chatbot that represented a non-profit charitable organization. The results suggest that interaction with a personified chatbot evokes perceived anthropomorphism; however, it does not elicit greater willingness to donate. In fact, we found that commonly used anthropomorphic features, like name and narrative, led to negative attitudes toward an AI agent in the donation context. Our results showcase a preference for non-personified chatbots paired with logical persuasion appeal, emphasizing the significance of consistency in chatbot interaction, mirroring human-human engagement. We discuss the importance of moving from exploring the common scenario of a chatbot with machine identity vs. a chatbot with human identity in light of the recent regulations of AI systems.