Activating Social Responses in Human–AI Interaction: The Effects of Reciprocal Self-Disclosure and Social Role Framing

As chatbots become increasingly embedded in everyday communication, understanding when they elicit social responses is important. We conducted an experiment in which 169 participants interacted with LLM-based chatbots in a 2 (reciprocal self-disclosure: yes vs. no) × 3 (social role: mentor, companion, or assistant) between-subjects design. Self-esteem was measured before the interaction as an individual-difference factor. Factorial analyses showed that reciprocal self-disclosure increased users’ disclosure but d…