Coping with Emotional Distress: The Role of Self-Disclosure to Robots

Today our new paper came out - it is a replication and extension of our 2024 study https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12369-023-01076-z which was the most downloaded paper in 2024 at International Journal of Social Robotics

Laban, G., Morrison, V., Kappas, A., & Cross, E. (2025). Coping with Emotional Distress via Self-Disclosure to Robots: An Intervention with Caregivers. Int J of Soc Robotics. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12369-024-01207-0

This paper explores the potential of social robots to provide emotional support for informal caregivers, a population often experiencing significant stress and loneliness. By having caregivers self-disclose personal experiences to the Pepper robot over ten sessions across five weeks, we aimed to determine if these interactions could positively impact caregiver well-being and emotion regulation strategies. The results indicate that participants disclosed more over time and perceived the robot as more social and competent, leading to improved mood, reduced loneliness and stress, and increased acceptance and positive reappraisal of their caregiving situation. This suggests that social robots could be a valuable tool for supporting caregivers' emotional health through facilitated verbal interaction.

Here is an audio summary of the article via Google Notebook LM

One of the interesting aspects this research also addresses is whether social robots that could not provide physical help, for example by doing the laundry, or making order, could still provide an important function, simply by communicating. This is relevant as many social robots seem to be doomed to be interesting for a short time, but stop being useful very quickly. This is one of the big questions when it comes to evaluating the usefulness of social robots. Several companies that produce robots are having economic difficulties or have even had to close. Aldebaran, makers of the Pepper robot we used in the present study and its precursor, also have serious problems. Many researchers using Pepper and its cousin Nao are worried at this point.