Zhang Wei-Zhong, Lian Rong
School of Education, Fujian Polytechnic Normal University, Fuzhou, Fujian, 350300, China.
School of Psychology, Fujian Normal University, Fuzhou, Fujian, 350007, China.
BMC Psychol. 2025 Apr 20;13(1):408. doi: 10.1186/s40359-025-02741-w.
In some services involving social and emotional needs (such as psychological counseling), people seem to prefer human services over AI. Exploring the psychological mechanisms behind this preference can help increase people's acceptance of AI-based psychological counseling. This study aims to explore the differences in people's consultation intention for human versus AI across different counseling scenarios, as well as the role of trust (including cognitive and emotional trust) between humans and AI.
A total of 477 participants (297 in Study 1 and 180 in Study 2) were randomly assigned to different groups for counseling imagination tasks and then completed self-report questionnaires.
The results of Study 1 demonstrated a significantly higher consultation intention towards human counselors in social emotional scenarios, while no significant preference was observed in cognitive analytical scenarios. Study 2 replicated the findings of Study 1, and further revealed that: (1) cognitive and affective trust played a multiple mediating role between counselor type and consultation intention in social emotional scenarios; (2) there existed a suppressing effect in the relationship model between cognitive trust, counselor type, and counseling intentions in cognitive analytical scenarios; (3) psychological counseling scenarios moderated the relationship between cognitive trust/counselor type and consultation intention.
These findings offer practical guidance for the development of AI-driven psychological consultation products and carry theoretical implications for research pertaining to human-AI interaction.
在一些涉及社会和情感需求的服务（如心理咨询）中，人们似乎更倾向于人工服务而非人工智能。探究这种偏好背后的心理机制有助于提高人们对基于人工智能的心理咨询的接受度。本研究旨在探讨在不同咨询场景下人们对人工咨询与人工智能咨询意愿的差异，以及人与人工智能之间信任（包括认知信任和情感信任）的作用。
共有477名参与者（研究1中有297名，研究2中有180名）被随机分配到不同组进行咨询想象任务，然后完成自我报告问卷。
研究1的结果表明，在社会情感场景中，人们对人工咨询师的咨询意愿显著更高，而在认知分析场景中未观察到显著偏好。研究2重复了研究1的结果，并进一步揭示：（1）在社会情感场景中，认知信任和情感信任在咨询师类型与咨询意愿之间起多重中介作用；（2）在认知分析场景中，认知信任、咨询师类型和咨询意愿之间的关系模型存在抑制效应；（3）心理咨询场景调节了认知信任/咨询师类型与咨询意愿之间的关系。
这些发现为人工智能驱动的心理咨询产品的开发提供了实践指导，并对人与人工智能交互的研究具有理论意义。
