My Agent as Myself or Another: Effects on Credibility and Listening to Advice

People consider other people who resemble them to be more persuasive. Users may consider embodied conversational agents, or ECAs, to be more persuasive if the agents resemble them. In an experimental study, we found that users rated the persuasiveness of agents that resemble them higher than other agents. However, actual advice-taking diverged from this pattern; when users created the agents, users changed their choices less when interacting with the agents that resembled them. We conducted a follow-up study and found that resemblance and self-esteem affect interactions with agents that resemble users. We discuss the use of self-report and behavioral data in evaluations of agent interfaces and how agents that resemble users might foster particular social interactions with a system. We suggest that agents that resemble users may be more persuasive in advising users about their actions and decisions.