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For a genuine conversation, consider talking to a robot; the less humanized, the better. Consumer researcher Anne Scherer shares her findings on why some machines get us to open up better than actual people, revealing fascinating insights about human nature that could lead to more honest interactions in our day-to-day lives.
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Transcriber:
Now, a few years back, I was having
a barbecue with friends and family.
As usual, we talked about the weather,
the good food or TV shows to watch.
So nothing out of the ordinary
until one attendee casually mentioned
that he and his wife
hadn’t had sex in a long time.
As you can imagine,
what followed was an awkward silence.
Until a six-year-old boy
attending the barbecue with his parents
blurted out that his parents
had lots of sex
and he could hear them all the time.
And then the barbecue continued
as if nothing had happened.
Now, when I’m not having barbecues,
I am researching how people
interact with each other
and how that transfers
to their interactions with technologies,
so not all too surprisingly,
after this very unique
social interaction at the barbecue,
I was left wondering why we, the audience,
were so greatly ignoring what the adult
so openly shared with us that evening.
So why the silence and then
the laughter at the boy’s comment?
Well, both of them
were breaking a social rule:
never talk about sex,
money or politics at a dinner table.
We assume that an adult
knows this rule and sticks to it.
So when such expectations are broken,
we sanction the offender accordingly —
in our case, with ignorance.
When a child, however, breaks such a rule,
we attribute this to their naive
understanding of our social manners
and up to a certain age at least,
do not openly sanction them for it.
Clearly, there is no official rule book
for socially appropriate behaviors
or even socially accepted dinner topics.
In fact, our social norms
are usually unwritten codes of conduct,
and they change over time
as we as a society change and learn.
Less than a year ago, for instance,
it was considered impolite
not to shake hands
when introducing yourself to someone.
A few months and the worldwide
spread of the coronavirus later
and shaking hands
may be something to be frowned upon
and maybe even a thing of the past.
The way we learn these social rules then
is mostly by social rewards
and social punishments.
Now, as social animals,
we aim for social approval
and want to avoid other’s disapproval.
So we act in a way
that is socially accepted
and present ourselves
in a socially desirable way to others.
So we want to be seen as an individual
that is smart, successful,
sporty and active, creative, empathic
and possibly all that at once.
Now, through social media,
our strive for social approval,
and with it, our need
for self-presentation and perfection
has skyrocketed.
Clearly, there is a flip side
to all of this.
In any social interaction,
we do not only look for others’ approval,
but we also constantly fear
other’s disapproval
when we cannot live up
to their expectations.
Just consider an adult
with incontinence problems
or a drug addiction.
If he or she had to talk
to a health care professional,
what would you expect to find?
Or if a soldier returned from combat
and had to talk
about their fears or problems,
do you think they would open up easily?
A team of USC researchers
examined just that.
So they looked at the data
from the US Army.
Traditionally, soldiers
had to be interviewed
by a human health care professional
when returning from combat
to check if everything is OK.
Now, interestingly,
the researchers found that soldiers
hardly reported any problems
after their returns.
Surely many of them were truly fine,
but the researchers also suspected
that many soldiers did not dare
to share their problems openly.
After all, soldiers are trained
to be strong and brave individuals
that learn not to show any weaknesses.
So openly admitting
to have health problems,
to have trouble sleeping
or to have nightmares
is not something easy to do for soldiers.
The question then ultimately becomes
how can we help individuals
open up more easily
and worry less
about the judgment of others?
Well, remember what I said earlier.
We expect social evaluation
in any social interaction.
So how about we remove
the social from the interaction?
This is exactly
what the team in the US did.
In fact, they developed
a virtual interviewer called SimSensei.
So SimSensei is a digital avatar
that has a humanlike appearance
and can interact with clients
through natural conversations.
Now, when returning from combat,
soldiers were now interviewed
by the digital avatar
instead of that human
health care professional.
And what happened?
Well, once SimSensei was introduced,
soldiers reported more health problems,
like having nightmares
or trouble sleeping.
So machines can help
remove the social from the equation
and help people open up more easily.
But careful, not all machines
are created equal.
Considering the tremendous advancements
in technologies like computer graphics
or natural language processing,
machines have become
increasingly humanlike.
The question then ultimately becomes,
which rules do we apply
in these interactions?
Do we still apply social rules
when we interact with humanlike machines?
So do we start to worry
about social judgment again?
This is exactly what I examine
in my research.
Together with colleagues,
we have developed a series of chatbots.
These chatbots were programmed
to simulate text-based conversations
and they were designed
to be either very social and humanlike
or very functional and machine-like.
So, for instance,
our humanlike bots
use so-called speed disfluencies
and social language cues,
like these “ohos”, “ahas”, “hmms”
we humans love to use in our conversations
to signal our presence
to conversation partners.
In contrast, our machine-like bots
lacked such social cues
and simply kept to the talking points.
Since we were interested
in how much people would open up
in these different conversations,
we ask participants a number of questions,
which gradually grew
more and more personal,
up to the point
where we would ask participants
to share possibly very delicate
information about themselves.
Now, considering the findings
from prior research,
such as the one from the US Army before,
we expected that people
would apply more social rules
in their interactions
with these humanlike bots
and act accordingly.
So what did we find?
Well, exactly that.
So participants interacting
with our humanlike bots
were more concerned
about social evaluation
and as a result of this
social apprehension,
they also gave more
socially desirable responses.
Let me give you an example.
One of the most delicate questions
that we asked participants
was the number of prior
sex partners they had had.
When interacting with our humanlike bot,
men reported to have
significantly more prior sex partners
and women reported
to have significantly less
than those men and women
interacting with our mechanistic bot.
So what does this all tell us?
Well, first, men want to look good
by having more prior sex partners
and women by having less.
Clearly, this already says a lot
about what the different sexes
consider socially desirable
and how our expectations
in society still differ across genders.
But this opens up a whole new topic
that I will better leave
for other experts to discuss.
Second, and maybe more importantly,
from a consumer psychology perspective.
People open up more easily
when they interact with machines
that are apparently just that — machines.
Today, a lot of sweat, money and tears
is put into making machines
basically indistinguishable from us.
Now, this research can show
that sometimes letting a machine
be a machine is actually a good thing.
Which brings me to my third point.
These machine interactions
have been highly criticized at times.
So you may have heard
that Siri, Alexa or others
make your kids rude or impolite.
Hopefully, this research can show you
a great upside
of these machine interactions.
In times of social media
and our constant hunt for the next “like,”
machines can give us grownups —
help us find that inner child again
and give our constant need
for self-presentation and perfection
a time-out.
For once, we do not need to worry
if the number of prior sex partners
is too high or too low,
and instead it is OK
to simply be who we are.
Ultimately, then, I think
that these machines can remind us
of a central element of what makes
a good conversation partner:
being nonjudgmental.
so the next time you might encounter
a unique social situation
like mine at the barbecue,
try to be less judgmental
when another person openly shares
their thoughts, feelings
and problems with you.
Many machines do this already,
and maybe so should we.
Thank you very much.
Science & Technology4 years ago
CNET4 years ago
Wired6 years ago
People & Blogs3 years ago
Wired6 years ago
Wired6 years ago
Wired6 years ago
CNET5 years ago
thangjam kishorchand
July 29, 2021 at 3:50 pm
Why am I having deja vu?
Anas Belkrimi mohamad
July 29, 2021 at 3:55 pm
الحياة الذي عاشها الإنسان الأول، أفضل ما يمكن على متن كوكب الأرض! الأرض هذا هو مكان، والزمان زمان نبي الله إدريس..
العلم ! والتقنية… مهمة جداََ وكثيراََ. لكن ! ليس كل إنسان عقله في ما يمكن إن يفهم إتستخدامها له وليس ضده..
Seedra Mehdawi
July 29, 2021 at 3:56 pm
👏👏
Nicole on EQ
July 29, 2021 at 4:22 pm
social norms are a huge factor. & it’s interesting to see how they change depending on the situation.
Anna Mae Gold
July 29, 2021 at 4:29 pm
😻🙏🏽
True Crime Queen TV
July 29, 2021 at 4:51 pm
Love these videos! They’re so amazing. Everyone stay safe out there ❤️❤️❤️
SUCCESS SYSTEMS
July 29, 2021 at 5:03 pm
I wish everyone that sees this comment become successful 🧡
Paul DeSousa
July 29, 2021 at 5:16 pm
Its the fact that the opposite party is just an dishonest or if not more dishonest. Therefore, you do not have an incentive to be honest with each other due to each party being dirty. Now, you may have an event where one individual is outright, obviously dishonest and filthy dirty, which creates an even greater reason for the other individual to distrust and begin to see the dishonest individual as less human. On the other hand, machines couldn’t care less about you what you have to say, it has no conscious, emotions, only a processor, an extremely fast one.
Big Dee
July 29, 2021 at 5:34 pm
Yawn
Jonathan Perry
July 29, 2021 at 5:46 pm
The question is not as interacting with machines it’s interacting with people on forums like this. It’s very easy to speak your mind when you’re not looking face-to-face that the person
Sceptkl 1
July 29, 2021 at 5:48 pm
Did we really need to waste resources on this talk? Uh answer, no judgement…ok done. TED really is wasting our time now. UNSUBSCRIBE time
Zeroth S22
July 29, 2021 at 6:07 pm
This story .. already heard this lol 🤣
Brian McInnis
July 29, 2021 at 6:28 pm
The difference between one ‘with’ and two can be the difference between ‘Why we’re more honest with machines than we are with people’ and ‘Why we’re more honest with machines than people are with machines’.
Ange Niyonkuru
July 29, 2021 at 7:21 pm
Very very intersting.. Humans are more honest in a World machine
Things I Buy
July 29, 2021 at 7:22 pm
Very interesting topic
Zenn Exile
July 29, 2021 at 7:23 pm
more ridiculous WooWoo. Honesty is a construct within the construct of language. This is imaginary insight into imaginary ideas, that also contain imaginarily-imagined sub components. hashTag: wooWooCeption
Cassie Beasley
July 29, 2021 at 8:04 pm
If you can overcome traumatic mental abuse, development of codependency and PTSD. It doesn’t matter if you talked to a human or a chatbot (it is detectible to a monkey occasionally). If man or machine can show you what real integrity should look like, what it is like to experience kindness and understanding, it’s a beautiful and uplifting experience to be able to see yourself flourish into living life again when you’ve allowed yourself to be beat down to the darkest places that brave men would fear to go. As I said to have compassion coming from a bit or a human is not a concern, when you get to stand on the other side with a renewed since of self. If it can save a life, save a closed mind then I’m thankful for any chat bot therapist, chat bot friend or any other chat bot can save us from social media and ourselves. Thank God for brilliant minds for inventions even if they have to drive some minds crazy to achieve this. Y’all got any robot husband’s? 😜 The best psychological medication by far.
Granjacia
July 31, 2021 at 3:44 am
Are you a millennial?
Worth It Candy
July 29, 2021 at 8:53 pm
Social judgment went out the door when Trump got elected.
Merry
July 30, 2021 at 3:21 pm
Do not come… do not come.
vld
July 29, 2021 at 10:13 pm
Good talk, to the point.
English IELTS
July 29, 2021 at 10:53 pm
❤️👍👍❤️❤️❤️❤️
Dharyll Alinsunurin
July 29, 2021 at 11:34 pm
But judgement is one of the things that sets us apart from machines.
So should we be less humans then?
Claire
July 30, 2021 at 1:23 am
Okay but why would you tell a group of people something highly personal about your wife? Why not talk to one or two people there you know well?
Radio Raven
July 30, 2021 at 1:34 am
It all comes down to breeding opportunity, say words that will get you closer to breeding.
Johnjohn42 Kudi
July 30, 2021 at 1:40 am
Liked and am watching!!
Dderek
July 30, 2021 at 2:40 am
People are strange
THƯ HÀ LAN
July 30, 2021 at 3:55 am
Many people are sensitive, vulnerable, afraid of losing face. However, it happens because of the social norm, culture, and self-thought. If you are optimistic and brave enough to accept you as the way you are, you can open up more easily ! Machines don’t judge. But people always do.
Hot Girls Video XXX
July 30, 2021 at 4:07 am
and a castle called Love
Rob Ot
July 30, 2021 at 5:07 am
So this is what’s wrong with (most) social interaction; judgement & (dis) approval. Useless.
Interesting.
nioutest
July 30, 2021 at 5:23 am
I d like to leave a like and also a compliment for this nice video, but that s not what a non judgmental machine would do , so im not sure how to respond now… 🙂
Bad Lover
July 30, 2021 at 7:03 am
I want this woman
Ath 1434
July 30, 2021 at 1:40 pm
Name checks out
Enkeria
July 30, 2021 at 11:51 am
My social approval: Hello I exist.
Dempsey Rollo
July 30, 2021 at 1:55 pm
Being a non-judgmental is a good advice. People who judge themselves harshly will still not even be able to talk to a machine.
– OT, Saudi Arabia.
CheaterXL
July 30, 2021 at 2:27 pm
A machine is basically an intelligence which isn’t pressuring expectation on somebody and isn’t thinking by itself.
Donald Frederick
July 31, 2021 at 4:58 am
For me it’s more there’s no risk that any interaction with a machine can result in harm to a person but since that risk is there with human interaction i avoid it to help protect others from the risk I view in myself (yeah, I know, breaking another social norm).
Joel Cramer
July 31, 2021 at 8:52 am
I disagree with those who reduce this all the the judgement of people. I wonder if this is more about us getting less comfortable with each other (more private).
Ligia Sommers
July 31, 2021 at 5:50 pm
👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻🙏🏻💖🌹
Ambitious School
August 1, 2021 at 9:33 am
This can justify why they want to kill us by the vaccine and stay with machines 😁
KQJ_Diya007
August 2, 2021 at 1:33 am
Hmm
Ronald Dan Caliva
August 2, 2021 at 10:16 am
The world is changing so fast so did the people all over the world. Not everything posted you see on social media is true
凌lzl
August 2, 2021 at 1:41 pm
This is a really meaningful video.(￣▽￣)
Ivory
August 3, 2021 at 2:17 pm
In other words, everyone’s a liar and a manipulator because they want to look good or fit expectations that other people have of them. This is less prevalent on the internet because of the anonymity and (mostly) consequence-free environment it fosters. You can do and say whatever you want on the digital world because you use aliases to hide your real identity. If we take these things into consideration, humanity as a whole is actually pretty far from being the “civilized” race it perceives itself to be.
We are all animals at heart, living in chains we built ourselves, for ourselves. But if it weren’t for social standards and judgement, we would be little more than savages with no notion of morality or consequence. We can’t progress if we think and act like beasts.