“Hey Siri, You’re Dumb!”: The Fit Effect of Power Experience and Desire for Power on User Aggression Toward Conversational Agents
Cuicui Cao, Yingying Hu, Qianfan Zhang · International Journal of Human-Computer Interaction · 2025
Conversational agents (CAs) powered by artificial intelligence are frequently subjected to verbal aggression by users, which can ultimately affect CAs’ business value. However, the underlying reasons for such aggression remain understudied in the literature. This study aimed to investigate the fit effect of power experience over CAs and users’ personal desire for power on verbal aggression. First, our results reveal that power experience over CAs negatively influenced users’ anticipatory guilt regarding verbal aggression toward CAs. Second, there was a fit effect between two types of power: when power experience over CAs and users’ personal desire for power were congruent, users’ anticipatory guilt was lower than when they were incongruent, leading to increased verbal aggression toward CAs. Our study contributes to the literature on verbal aggression toward CAs and can help business practitioners take appropriate measures to mitigate the potential costs incurred by users’ power experience over CAs.