Quantitative Research Article and the Quality of Scholarly Information It Contains

Article Review
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Article Review
In the article “Psychological, relational, and emotional effects of self-disclosure after conversations with a chatbot,” Ho, Hancock, and Miner (2018) explore the downstream effects on an individual following either an emotional or factual disclosure after engaging in a conversation with either a person or a chatbot. The study is informed by past studies indicating that one experiences beneficial emotional, relational, and psychological outcomes following the disclosure of personal information. In the study, the researchers found that the effects experienced by the participants after personal disclosure depended on whether the participants felt that they were disclosing their information to a person or to a chatbot.
Theoretical Foundation
The authors rely on three theories. First, the researchers refer to the perceived communication framework. The framework posits that the extent to which one experiences the positive effects of disclosure is mediated by the extent to which the disclosing party feels that they are understood by the listener (Ho, Hancock, and Miner, 2018). To this end, the framework attributes the positive effect to the creation of a sense of social belonging and acceptance that activates the connection and rewards areas within the brain and improves the pursuit of personal goals. Second, the researchers rely on the disclosure processing framework. The framework posits that people are more likely to disclose their personal information to non-human partners due to fears of negative judgment (Ho, Hancock, and Miner, 2018). Third, the researchers rely on the Computer as Social Actors theory, which suggests that individuals perceive, interact, and respond to a computer just like they do with other humans even without the conscious intention to do so (Gambino, Fox and Ratan, 2020).
The three theories are used to formulate the three hypotheses that are tested using the data collected from the study participants. The perceived understanding hypothesis theory leads to the hypothesis that participants disclosing to a person will experience more positive benefits from disclosure than those disclosing to a chatbot owing to the increased perceived understanding (Dimbleby & Burton, 2020). The disclosure processing framework leads to a hypothesis that participants who disclose to a chatbot will experience more benefits than the ones who disclose to a person given that they will have greater disclosure intimacy. Computer as a Social Actor theory leads to the development of the hypothesis that the emotional effects of disclosing to a chatbot and disclosing to a partner will be similar as there is minimal distinction between disclosing to a person and disclosing to a chatbot (Ho, Hancock, and Miner, 2018).
Value of Literature Review
The researchers use a literature review to provide background information on the potential benefits of intimate disclosure. As a consequence, Ho, Hancock, and Miner (2018) establish the significance of their current study by identifying the existing research gap that the findings from the current study will fill. To a larger extent, the literature review allows the resear...