Impact of Chatbot Gender on User’s Stereotypical Perception and Satisfaction

There have been many studies that show how gender affects human perceptions of a conversational agent. However, there is limited research on the effect of gender when applied to a chatbot system. This paper presents early results from a research study which indicate that chatbot gender does have an effect on users overall satisfaction and gender-stereotypical perception. Subsequent studies could focus on further expanding the research by increasing the sample size to validate statistical significance further, as well as recruiting a more diverse sample size from various backgrounds and experiences.

Content

Author and article information

Contributors

David Baxter

Marian McDonnell

Robert McLoughlin

Conference

Publication date: July 2018

Publication date (Print): July 2018

Pages: 1-5

Affiliations

[0001]Institute of Art, Design and Technology

Kill Avenue, Dun Laoghaire

[0002]IADT

Kill Avenue, Dun Laoghaire

Article

DOI: 10.14236/ewic/HCI2018.154

SO-VID: 42155b8f-ee4d-46c0-a923-72e0a3f17096

License:

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 Unported License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Conference name: Proceedings of the 32nd International BCS Human Computer Interaction Conference

Conference acronym: HCI

Conference number: 32

Conference location: Belfast, UK

Conference date: 4 - 6 July 2018

Conference sponsor: Electronic Workshops in Computing (eWiC)

Conference theme: Human Computer Interaction Conference

History

Product

1477-9358 BCS Learning & Development

Self URI (article page): https://www.scienceopen.com/hosted-document?doi=10.14236/ewic/HCI2018.154

Self URI (journal page): https://ewic.bcs.org/

References

A. L. BaylorY. Kim J.C. LesterR.M. VicariF. Paraguaçu 2004 Pedagogical Agent Design: The Impact of Agent Realism, Gender, Ethnicity, and Instructional Role Intelligent Tutoring Systems. ITS 2004 Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 3220 Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
S. L. Bem 1981 Gender schema theory: A cognitive account of sex typing Psychological Review 88 4 354 364
S. L. Bem 1978 Bem inventory Palo Alto, CA: Consulting Psychologists Press
K. E. CulleyP. Madhavan 2013 A note of caution regarding anthropomorphism in HCI agents Computers in Human Behavior 29 3 577 579
De Angeli A.S. Brahnam 2006 Sex stereotypes and conversational agents Proc. of Gender and Interaction: Real and Virtual Women in a Male World Venice, Italy
A. GulzF. AhlnerM. Haake 2007 Visual femininity and masculinity in synthetic characters and patterns of affect In International Conference on Affective Computing and Intelligent Interaction 654 665 Springer
R. Karniol 2011 The Color of Children’s Gender Stereotypes Sex Roles 65 1-2 119 132 doi:10.1007/s11199-011-9989-1
E. Lee 2003 Effects of “gender” of the computer on informational social influence: the moderating role of task type International Journal of Human-Computer Studies 58 4 347 362 doi:10.1016/s1071-5819(03)00009-0
K.N. MorenoN.K. PersonA.B. AdcockR.N. Eck V.G.T. JacksonJ.C. Marineau 2002. Etiquette and efficacy in animated pedagogical agents: the role of stereotypes In: Paper Presented at the AAAI Symposium on Personalized Agents Cape Cod, MA
C. NassY. Moon 2000 Machines and Mindlessness: Social Responses to Computers. Journal of Social Issues 56 1 81 103 http://doi.org/10.1111/0022-4537.00153
C. NassY. MoonN. Green 1997 Are Machines Gender Neutral? Gender‐Stereotypic Responses to Computers with Voices Journal of Applied Social Psychology 27 864 876 http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1559-1816.1997.tb00275.x
Clifford NassJonathan Steuerand Ellen R. Tauber “Computers Are Social Actors” In Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems 72 78 CHI ’94 New York, NY, USA: ACM 1994 doi:10.1145/191666.191703
M. Reisert 2017 The biggest trends of SXSW Interactive: AI and Chatbots
Retrieved August 12 2017 from http://www.ibm.com/blogs/watson/2017/03/biggest-trends-sxsw-interactive-ai-chatbots/
J. RhimY. KimM.-S. KimD. Y. Yim 2014 The Effect of Gender Cue Alterations of Robot to Match Task Attributes on User’s Acceptance Perception In Proceedings of HCI Korea 51 57 South Korea Hanbit Media, Inc Retrieved from http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=2729485.2729494
N. B. SarterD. D. Woods 1995 How in the World Did We Ever Get into That Mode? Mode Error and Awareness in Supervisory Control Human Factors: The Journal of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society 37 1 5 19 doi: 10.1518/001872095779049516
T. Schnoebelen 2016 The gender of artificial intelligence August 12 2017 from http://www.crowdflower.com/the-gender-of-ai/
J. Shriftman 2017 4 chatbot predictions for 2017 August 12 2017 from http://venturebeat.com/2017/01/25/4-chatbot-predictions-for-2017/
G. VeletsianosC. ScharberA. Doering 2008 When sex, drugs, and violence enter the classroom: Conversations between adolescents and a female pedagogical agent Interacting with Computers 20 3 292 301 doi:10.1016/j.intcom.2008.02.007
D. H. Voelker S. U. D.Communication of 1994 The effects of image size and voice volume on the evaluation of represented faces Stanford University

Comments

Comment on this article

[1] A. L. BaylorY. Kim J.C. LesterR.M. VicariF. Paraguaçu 2004 Pedagogical Agent Design: The Impact of Agent Realism, Gender, Ethnicity, and Instructional Role Intelligent Tutoring Systems. ITS 2004 Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 3220 Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

[2] S. L. Bem 1981 Gender schema theory: A cognitive account of sex typing Psychological Review 88 4 354 364

[3] S. L. Bem 1978 Bem inventory Palo Alto, CA: Consulting Psychologists Press

[4] K. E. CulleyP. Madhavan 2013 A note of caution regarding anthropomorphism in HCI agents Computers in Human Behavior 29 3 577 579

[5] De Angeli A.S. Brahnam 2006 Sex stereotypes and conversational agents Proc. of Gender and Interaction: Real and Virtual Women in a Male World Venice, Italy

[6] A. GulzF. AhlnerM. Haake 2007 Visual femininity and masculinity in synthetic characters and patterns of affect In International Conference on Affective Computing and Intelligent Interaction 654 665 Springer

[7] R. Karniol 2011 The Color of Children’s Gender Stereotypes Sex Roles 65 1-2 119 132 doi:10.1007/s11199-011-9989-1

[8] E. Lee 2003 Effects of “gender” of the computer on informational social influence: the moderating role of task type International Journal of Human-Computer Studies 58 4 347 362 doi:10.1016/s1071-5819(03)00009-0

[9] K.N. MorenoN.K. PersonA.B. AdcockR.N. Eck V.G.T. JacksonJ.C. Marineau 2002. Etiquette and efficacy in animated pedagogical agents: the role of stereotypes In: Paper Presented at the AAAI Symposium on Personalized Agents Cape Cod, MA

[10] C. NassY. Moon 2000 Machines and Mindlessness: Social Responses to Computers. Journal of Social Issues 56 1 81 103 http://doi.org/10.1111/0022-4537.00153

[11] C. NassY. MoonN. Green 1997 Are Machines Gender Neutral? Gender‐Stereotypic Responses to Computers with Voices Journal of Applied Social Psychology 27 864 876 http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1559-1816.1997.tb00275.x

[12] Clifford NassJonathan Steuerand Ellen R. Tauber “Computers Are Social Actors” In Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems 72 78 CHI ’94 New York, NY, USA: ACM 1994 doi:10.1145/191666.191703

[13] M. Reisert 2017 The biggest trends of SXSW Interactive: AI and Chatbots

[14] Retrieved August 12 2017 from http://www.ibm.com/blogs/watson/2017/03/biggest-trends-sxsw-interactive-ai-chatbots/

[15] J. RhimY. KimM.-S. KimD. Y. Yim 2014 The Effect of Gender Cue Alterations of Robot to Match Task Attributes on User’s Acceptance Perception In Proceedings of HCI Korea 51 57 South Korea Hanbit Media, Inc Retrieved from http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=2729485.2729494

[16] N. B. SarterD. D. Woods 1995 How in the World Did We Ever Get into That Mode? Mode Error and Awareness in Supervisory Control Human Factors: The Journal of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society 37 1 5 19 doi: 10.1518/001872095779049516

[17] T. Schnoebelen 2016 The gender of artificial intelligence August 12 2017 from http://www.crowdflower.com/the-gender-of-ai/

[18] J. Shriftman 2017 4 chatbot predictions for 2017 August 12 2017 from http://venturebeat.com/2017/01/25/4-chatbot-predictions-for-2017/

[19] G. VeletsianosC. ScharberA. Doering 2008 When sex, drugs, and violence enter the classroom: Conversations between adolescents and a female pedagogical agent Interacting with Computers 20 3 292 301 doi:10.1016/j.intcom.2008.02.007

[20] D. H. Voelker S. U. D.Communication of 1994 The effects of image size and voice volume on the evaluation of represented faces Stanford University

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