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Are People Polite to Computers? Responses to Computer‐Based Interviewing Systems 1
Author(s) -
Nass Clifford,
Moon Youngme,
Carney Paul
Publication year - 1999
Publication title -
journal of applied social psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.822
H-Index - 111
eISSN - 1559-1816
pISSN - 0021-9029
DOI - 10.1111/j.1559-1816.1999.tb00142.x
Subject(s) - politeness , interview , pencil (optics) , psychology , computer users , task (project management) , computer mouse , social psychology , applied psychology , computer science , human–computer interaction , linguistics , multimedia , engineering , mechanical engineering , philosophy , systems engineering , political science , law
The present studies were designed to test whether people are “polite” to computers. Among people, an interviewer who directly asks about him‐ or herself will receive more positive and less varied responses than if the same question is posed by a third party. Two studies were designed to determine if the same phenomenon occurs in human–computer interaction. In the first study ( N = 30), participants performed a task with a text‐based computer and were then interviewed about the performance of that computer on 1 of 3 loci: (a) the same computer, (b) a paper‐and‐pencil questionnaire, or (c) a different (but identical) text‐based computer. Consistent with the politeness prediction, same‐computer participants evaluated the computer more positively and more homogeneously than did either paper‐and‐pencil or different‐computer participants. Study 2 ( N = 30) replicated the results with voice‐based computers. Implications for computer‐based interviewing are discussed.