Living up to the chatbot hype: The influence of anthropomorphic design cues and communicative agency framing on conversational agent and company perceptions

Araujo, Theo

doi:10.1016/j.chb.2018.03.051

Cited by 1,156AI in Service InteractionsSocial Robot Interaction and HRIDigital Marketing and Social Media

Living up to the chatbot hype: The influence of anthropomorphic design cues and communicative agency framing on conversational agent and company perceptions

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Araujo, Theo·2018·Computers in Human Behavior

DOI 10.1016/j.chb.2018.03.051

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Specific research on chatbot anthropomorphism did not emerge until 2018, led by Araujo's pioneering work.
“Specific research on chatbot anthropomorphism, however, did not emerge until 2018, led by Araujo's(2018) pioneering work.”
From Consumer Response to Anthropomorphism of Text‐Based <scp>AI</scp> Chatbots: A Systematic Literature Review and Future Research Directions (2025) · cites this paper as Araujo 2018
The Abstract and Introduction confirm that Araujo’s 2018 study investigates anthropomorphism in chatbots. But the Introduction describes it as extending earlier research, and the Hypothesis/RQ Findings section cites earlier work on human-like conversational agents. Our copy does not establish that research specifically on chatbot anthropomorphism first emerged in 2018 or that Araujo led it. (LLM, conf=0.84)
Experimental — accuracy not yet measured
The highly impactful and widely cited works of Araujo (2018) and Go and Sundar (2019) both appeared in Computers in Human Behavior, significantly contributing to the journal's high total citation count of 2536 citations.
“Notably, the highly impactful and widely cited works of Araujo(2018) and Go and Sundar(2019) both appeared in Computers in Human Behavior , significantly contributing to the journal's high total citation count of 2536 citations.”
From Consumer Response to Anthropomorphism of Text‐Based <scp>AI</scp> Chatbots: A Systematic Literature Review and Future Research Directions (2025) · cites this paper as Araujo 2018
The indexed copy identifies the cited work as Araujo’s chatbot paper, consistent with the sentence’s reference to Araujo (2018). The passages available from its Introduction and References (pages unavailable) do not report how widely it was cited, discuss Go and Sundar (2019), or substantiate the journal total of 2,536 citations and the claimed contribution to it. (LLM, conf=0.78)
Experimental — accuracy not yet measured
Multiple studies examine social presence solely through the lens of the CASA without explicitly applying the social presence theory.
“Multiple studies even examine social presence solely through the lens of the CASA without explicitly applying the social presence theory (e.g., Araujo2018; Shams etal.2024).”
From Consumer Response to Anthropomorphism of Text‐Based <scp>AI</scp> Chatbots: A Systematic Literature Review and Future Research Directions (2025) · cites this paper as Araujo 2018
Araujo's (2018) paper has gained 1214 citations to date.
“Leading the list is Araujo's(2018) highly impactful paper, which has gained 1214 citations to date.”
From Consumer Response to Anthropomorphism of Text‐Based <scp>AI</scp> Chatbots: A Systematic Literature Review and Future Research Directions (2025) · cites this paper as Araujo 2018
The paper’s References and results sections do not report how many times Araujo’s paper was cited. Searches for “1214 citations to date” and its citation count found no relevant passage in our copy; a later citation total cannot be verified from the paper itself. (LLM, conf=0.78)
Experimental — accuracy not yet measured
Chatbot user experience has been a key theme in recent research efforts for voice-based virtual agents and text-based applications.
“Chatbot user experience has been a key theme in recent research efforts, for voice-based virtual agents [75] and text-based applications [4].”
From Future directions for chatbot research: An interdisciplinary research agenda (2021) · cites this paper as [4]

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Authors: Araujo, T.
Affiliations: University of Amsterdam (NL)
Corresponding author: Araujo, Theo
ORCID: Araujo, Theo
Venue: Computers in Human Behavior
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Published: 2018-08
Volume: 85
Pages: 183-189
ISSN: 0747-5632 (ISSN-L)
DOI: 10.1016/j.chb.2018.03.051
OpenAlex: W2795037203
Cited by: 1,156
References: 44
Citations by year: 2026: 223 · 2025: 209 · 2024: 169 · 2023: 163 · 2022: 161 · 2021: 116 · 2020: 83 · 2019: 29 · 2018: 3
FWCI: 32.51
Type: journal article
Language: en
Open access: green
handle.uba.uva.nl
Licence: other-oa
www.elsevier.com/tdm/userlicense/1.0/ (tdm)
www.elsevier.com/legal/tdmrep-license (tdm)
Locations: Computers in Human Behavior (publishedVersion)
UvA-DARE (University of Amsterdam) (submittedVersion, other-oa)
Data Archiving and Networked Services (DANS) (submittedVersion, other-oa)
Funders: Universiteit van Amsterdam
Amsterdam School of Communication Research, University of Amsterdam
Topics: Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Artificial Intelligence › AI in Service Interactions
Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Social Robot Interaction and HRI
Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Digital Marketing and Social Media
Keywords: chatbots, anthropomorphism, social presence, consumer attitudes, customer satisfaction, service encounters, messaging apps

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