What is emotional support?

Emotional support is a type of social support that communicates empathy, emotional validation, and encouragement to people who are experiencing stressful life events ( Burleson, 2003 ). The provision of emotional support addresses basic human needs for being cared and supported by someone else.

Are emotional support chatbots a human?

Emotional support chatbots — which is what Pi is — are not. All of that is by design. Pi, released this week by the richly funded artificial intelligence start-up Inflection AI, aims to be “a kind and supportive companion that’s on your side,” the company announced. It is not, the company stressed, anything like a human.

Does emotional support amplify or impede a relationship?

Research on interpersonal communication has long recognized that although receiving emotional support can yield psychological benefits, personal relationships may amplify or impede people’s ability to profit from their partners’ emotional support ( Jones & Burleson, 1997 ).

Is emotional support mediated by a conversational partner?

The results showed that emotional support from a conversational partner was mediated through perceived supportiveness of the partner to reduce stress and worry among participants, and the link from emotional support to perceived supportiveness was stronger for a human than for a chatbot.