EBN- A new study has revealed the emotional benefits that humans get when they talk about their negative feelings with AI chatbots, such as Gemini and ChatGPT , even if it involves shouting at them.
According to her interview with PsyPost , researcher Milan Hu, author of the study, explained that the rapid development of AI- based chatbots made her investigate the feasibility of using them as a tool to vent negative emotions, such as fear, anger, and sadness, to improve people’s psychological state.
The study, published in the journal Applied Psycholog: Health and Well-being, focused on using chatbots as a listening committee for the negative feelings hidden within the user, rather than using them as a psychologist, helping them get rid of buried feelings of anger and sadness.
Venting negative feelings
The idea for the study came from the mind of Ho, a PhD student in psychology at Singapore Management University, due to the increasing feeling of loneliness among many age groups, as individuals find it difficult to find someone in their environment to talk to, without fear of being judged for their actions.
The research team relied on applying a practical experiment on 150 students, who were randomly divided into two groups. The first group expressed their negative feelings through text conversations with artificial intelligence, and the second group expressed what they felt through written notes, and then the roles were exchanged between the two groups.
After each session of venting negative emotions, the researchers found that the subjects who expressed feelings of fear and anger in their conversation with the AI felt a decrease in their negative emotions, compared to their expression in the traditional blogging method.
Theresearchers attributed this result to the development of generative artificial intelligence technologies, which resulted in instant responses with a more human character, and customized to show a more personal interaction that matches what the user is feeling.
While the study found that with feelings of sadness, which are less intense than anger and fear, talking to chatbots was less effective, and communicating with AI was not helpful in eliminating feelings of loneliness.
The study concluded that humans need a way to temporarily vent their negative feelings, whether that is by talking to a human, or even an artificial intelligence platform that can empathize and respond to them. The latter may be more useful because it will tolerate their way of expression, no matter how intense it is, unlike humans.
