Deploying a robotic positive psychology coach to improve college students’ psychological well-being
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11257_2022_Article_9337.pdf
Size
1.23 MB
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Unknown
Checksum (MD5)
f7414bad26d7d51f86551ca3ca97694e
Author(s)
Jeong, Sooyeon
Aymerich-Franch, Laura
Arias, Kika
Alghowinem, Sharifa
Lapedriza, Agata
Picard, Rosalind W.
Park, Hae Won
Breazeal, Cynthia
Date Issued
July 2022
Journal
User Modeling and User-Adapted Interaction
Publisher
Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Citation
Jeong, Sooyeon, Aymerich-Franch, Laura, Arias, Kika, Alghowinem, Sharifa, Lapedriza, Agata et al. 2022. "Deploying a robotic positive psychology coach to improve college students’ psychological well-being."
Version
Final published version
Abstract
Abstract
Despite the increase in awareness and support for mental health, college students’ mental health is reported to decline every year in many countries. Several interactive technologies for mental health have been proposed and are aiming to make therapeutic service more accessible, but most of them only provide one-way passive contents for their users, such as psycho-education, health monitoring, and clinical assessment. We present a robotic coach that not only delivers interactive positive psychology interventions but also provides other useful skills to build rapport with college students. Results from our on-campus housing deployment feasibility study showed that the robotic intervention showed significant association with increases in students’ psychological well-being, mood, and motivation to change. We further found that students’ personality traits were associated with the intervention outcomes as well as their working alliance with the robot and their satisfaction with the interventions. Also, students’ working alliance with the robot was shown to be associated with their pre-to-post change in motivation for better well-being. Analyses on students’ behavioral cues showed that several verbal and nonverbal behaviors were associated with the change in self-reported intervention outcomes. The qualitative analyses on the post-study interview suggest that the robotic coach’s companionship made a positive impression on students, but also revealed areas for improvement in the design of the robotic coach. Results from our feasibility study give insight into how learning users’ traits and recognizing behavioral cues can help an AI agent provide personalized intervention experiences for better mental health outcomes
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Media Laboratory
Terms of Use
Creative Commons Attribution
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DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.1007/s11257-022-09337-8
