Coping with Emotional Distress via Self-Disclosure to Robots: An Intervention with Caregivers

People often engage in self-disclosure and social sharing when trying to cope with emotional distress. This study introduces a novel long-term intervention designed to help informal caregivers cope with emotional distress by self-disclosing towards a social robot. Research indicates that informal caregivers frequently face challenges in handling the emotional and practical demands of caregiving, often experiencing a lack of social support and limited social interaction. Accordingly, we explored the extent of informal caregivers' self-disclosure behaviour towards a social robot (Pepper, SoftBank Robotics) over time, and how their perceptions of the robot evolved. Additionally, we examined how this intervention affected caregivers' moods, perceptions of the robot as comforting, feelings of loneliness, stress levels, as well as its impact on their emotion regulation. We replicated a previous long-term experiment [1] with a dedicated sample of informal caregivers who interacted with Pepper 10 times over five weeks, discussing everyday topics. Our results show that caregivers increasingly self-disclosed to the robot over time, perceiving it as more social and competent. Participants' moods improved following interactions, and they viewed the robot as increasingly comforting. They also reported feeling progressively less lonely and stressed. Thus, our findings with informal caregivers replicated those of [1]. Moreover, after the intervention, caregivers reported greater acceptance of their caregiving roles, reappraising it more positively, and reduced feelings of blame towards others. These results highlight the potential of social robots to provide emotional support for individuals coping with emotional distress.