Effects of Virtual Agents' Social Support for Social Sharing of Negative Emotions on Attachment Function and Trust

The first purpose of this study was to investigate the influence of the type of perceived social support that virtual agents bring to a human user when the user shares one’s negative emotional experience with the agent, on the extent to which the user perceives attachment functions as well as on trust on the agent. The second purpose was to investigate the influence of differences in agency on the extent to which a human user perceives attachment functions and trust on the agent. An experiment with kind of social support and agency as two between-subject factors was conducted with 69 Japanese adult males as subjects. Subjects participated in the experiment one at a time, conversing with a virtual agent in a VR environment. The subjects were asked to recall their own worrisome event and to talk with the virtual agent about the worrisome event they recalled. After subjects shared their worrisome events, the virtual agent gave the subjects statements to make them perceive social support, either instrumental or emotional. The results showed that when the subjects talk about their negative emotional experiences, given the information that the virtual agent is controlled by a computer, the virtual agent that gives the subjects statements eliciting perception of emotional support has positive effects on the the subjects’ perception of secure base, safe haven, maintaining proximity, as well as on cognitive and affective trust.