Impact of anthropomorphic government chatbots on users' perceived trust in the government: based on the perspective of the government services interaction chain

Purpose As government services have become increasingly anthropomorphic, intelligent and comprehensive, digital governments are introducing anthropomorphic design methods commonly used in the commercial field to build chatbots. However, government services are different from commercial services in seriousness, authority and other characteristics; if the use of anthropomorphism is not good, it may strengthen the public's stereotype of the government and reduce its credibility. Therefore, the questions of whether and how anthropomorphism should be applied to government services must be answered. Design/methodology/approach By constructing an interactive chain of government services, this study examined the impact of government chatbot anthropomorphism on users' perceived trust in the government from the perspectives of service providers, service receivers and service results. A research model was constructed with the anthropomorphic degree of the government chatbot as the independent variable, psychological distance and trust in the chatbot as the serial medium, trust in government as the dependent variable and self-construction and service outcome titers as the moderating variables. Three formal studies were conducted using the method of situational manipulation experiment. SPSS (version 26.0) was used for the statistical analysis of the experimental data to verify the research hypothesis. Findings The results show that the degree of anthropomorphism of government chatbots has a positive impact on trust in government, psychological distance and trust in chatbots play a mediating role in the above process, and psychological distance plays a moderating role between the degree of anthropomorphism of chatbots and trust in chatbots. Authoritarian obedience personality (high versus low) moderates the relationship between psychological distance and chatbot trust. Originality/value The findings demonstrate that conclusions about meeting user expectations through technology in the business sector can also be applied to government services due to the similarities between the two. This study defines the service interaction chain from the perspectives of service receivers, providers and outcomes, applying it to government services – thereby expanding and enriching service chain theory. Additionally, it uncovers the mechanisms behind trust in government, representing a novel application of trust transfer theory in the context of government affairs. The study contributes to existing theoretical research and offers practical recommendations for government management departments and digital government service providers.