The social companionship (SC) feature in conversational agents (CAs) enables the emotional bond and consumer relationships. The heightened interest in SC with CAs led to exponential growth in ...publications scattered across disciplines with fragmented findings, thus limiting holistic understanding of the domain and warrants a macroscopic view of the domain to guide future research directions. The present study fills the research void by offering a comprehensive literature review entailing science performance and intellectual structure mapping. The comprehensive review revealed the research domain's major theories, constructs, and thematic structure. Thematic and content analysis of intellectual structure resulted in a conceptual framework encompassing antecedents, mediators, moderators, and consequences of SC with CAs. The study discusses future research directions guiding practitioners and academicians in designing efficient and ethical AI companions.
•Systematic literature review on social companionship with conversational agents•The study presents science mapping and intellectual structure mapping.•Social companionship with conversational agents consists of five main research streams.•Findings reveal potential future research avenues.
Abstract
In this paper, a new ecosystem to support older adults and their caregivers in an indoor living environment is proposed. The GUARDIAN ecosystem is designed to address the different needs of ...end users in different countries. The ecosystem consists of a socially assistive robot (SAR), including sensors, and two mobile applications (one for caregivers and one for the older user). Starting from a user-centred and value-sensitive co-design approach, three key user requirements have been identified: monitoring, reminding, and social companionship. User requirements were translated into technical requirements to develop a flexible system architecture. Usability tests were performed to verify the satisfaction level about the GUARDIAN concept. User tests were carried out in three different countries involving 13 older adults, 14 informal carers and 15 formal carers showing that the proposed ecosystem satisfies the user requirements. These results confirm the feasibility of the application of the GUARDIAN ecosystem in living indoor environments.
•Mobile phone communication in social support networks of older adults is examined.•Mobile phones are important for mediating emotional support and social companionship.•The composition of social ...support networks scarcely predicts mobile phone communication.•Age and socioeconomic status are negative predictors only in emotional support networks.•Living alone positively affects mobile phone contacts in social support networks.
Mobile phones have gained an important role in the personal communication of older adults with the members of their social support networks. Research shows that older adults increasingly use the mobile phone for maintenance and development of social interactions with their family members, peers, and caregivers as providers of emotional support and social companionship. Therefore, this study explores how retired older adults in Slovenia use mobile phones as personal devices for supportive communication as well as how the characteristics of their social support networks are related to the frequency of mobile phone communication with their network members. Using ego-centered social support network data, collected on a nationwide representative sample of retired older adults in Slovenia, this study found that the composition of emotional support and of social companionship networks scarcely predicts the frequency of mobile phone communication of older adults with their network members. Conversely, according to the results, it seems that more frequent in-person and landline phone communication with network members are positively associated with mobile phone communication, suggesting that older adults extend their communication sphere with a mobile phone in their support networks. Finally, the results indicate that sociodemographic characteristics of older adults, such as age, social-economic status, and living alone, significantly determine the frequency of mobile communication with their network members, even though their magnitude varies depending on the type of social support network.
The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between emotional deprivation, social companionship and loneliness in organization with wellbeing in work while examining the effect of ...job control moderator. This study was applied in a descriptive and surveyed manner. The statistical population of this study was 212 employees of public organizations of Semnan who were selected through Accessible sampling. Structural equations’ modeling was used to analyze research data with Smart-PLS software. To assess the validity of convergent validity, the software was used and the cronbach alpha was used to fit the reliability, and its coefficient for all research structures was more than 0.7. The results show that emotional deprivation has a positive and significant effect on loneliness in organization, but social Companionship has a negative and significant effect on the level of employee loneliness. The results of the research confirmed the positive and significant effect of loneliness and wellbeing in work. Also, loneliness in the organization mediates the relationship between emotional deprivation and wellbeing, but does not mediate the relationship between social companionship and wellbeing. Nevertheless, job control modifies the relationship between loneliness in organization and sense of wellbeing.
Companion Versus Comparison Kim, Jinhyung; Hong, Emily K.; Choi, Incheol ...
Personality & social psychology bulletin,
03/2016, Letnik:
42, Številka:
3
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Which friend do you want to spend time with—a happy friend who performs better than you or an unhappy friend who performs worse than you? The present research demonstrates that in such conflicting ...situations, when the desires for companionship and comparison are pitted against each other, one’s level of happiness plays an important role in one’s choice. Using hypothetical scenarios, we found that compared with unhappy people, happy people expected that spending time with a happy, superior friend would be more pleasant than spending time with an unhappy, inferior friend (Studies 1B through 2) and were more willing to socialize with a happy, superior friend than with an unhappy, inferior friend (Studies 1B through 2). Moreover, this pattern was not explained by self-esteem (Study 2) or the similarity-attraction hypothesis (Study 3). The present findings suggest that happy people place more value on companionship than on comparison.
Although the number of older adults with access to landline and mobile phones has grown in recent years, little research exists that investigates how older adults use and potentially combine the two ...technologies for communication with the members of their social support networks. Therefore, this study explored how the composition of older adults' social companionship networks is related to the frequency of landline and mobile phone communication with their network members. In addition, the study examined the association between landline and mobile phone communication as well as their relationship with in-person communication in such networks. The survey data were gathered using an ego-centered social support approach in a nationwide representative sample of retired older adults in Slovenia. The results of multiple regression analyses revealed that the composition of a social companionship network better predicts the frequency of landline rather than mobile phone communication of older adults with their network members. The non-significant relationship between the frequency of landline and mobile phone communication suggested that the two technologies very likely have a different role in the maintenance of social companionship networks. The study also found a difference between the importance of control variables related to the socio-demographic characteristics of older adults for the frequency of landline and mobile phone communication. While age, education, and living alone significantly predicted the frequency of mobile communication with older adults' network members, significant predictors of their landline communication included gender and health impairments.
•Two forms of communication in socializing networks of older adults are examined.•Mobile phone communication is more frequent than landline phone communication.•Network composition better predicts landline than mobile phone communication.•Mobile phone and landline communication supplement each other.•Sociodemographics of older adults are associated with both forms of communication.
First year university is an important transition context for students. The present study examined the relationship between adjustment and support types, sources and levels of support, and ...satisfaction with levels of support, for first year students in an Australian university. Comparisons were made between young (17-21 year olds) and mature-aged students and local and international students. Findings indicate that well-adjusted students reported higher levels of social companionship support than the less adjusted group. Many students would have liked more support overall. In comparison to the local group, international students would have liked to receive more emotional, practical and informational support. The implications for service provision and university strategies are discussed. (HRK / Abstract übernommen).
Summary Background Demands for long-term care facilities for the elderly increased rapidly due to longevity of the current population and a trend toward nuclear families with fewer offspring . A ...study showed that the prevalence of depression is 8–15% and 30% among the community-dwelling and the institutionalized elderly , respectively, in the USA compared with 29.5% and 39.2% in Taiwan . The major goal of this study was to investigate the prevalence of depression in the elderly residing at long-term care facilities in Taiwan, to explore the relationship between demographic characteristics, health status, social support, and the participation in leisure activities with the development of depression in the elderly, and finally to propose possible interventional items for clinical use and further interventional study design. Methods A cross-sectional survey of the elderly was conducted through interview using questionnaire. A total of 309 subjects, aged 65 and above, in six long-term care facilities were enrolled in this study. The questionnaire collected information on their characteristics, health condition, the level of social support and daily activity, and depression status. Results Thee prevalence of depression among the elderly residing at long-term care facilities was 37% in Taiwan, and self-funded elderly had a higher depression rate than those in government-sponsored facilities. Participants with advanced ages, religious practices, literacy, longer facility stay, better instrumental activities of daily living (IADLs), more leisure activities, and strong social support had lower association with depression. Factors strongly associated with depression included better self-assessed health status, ability to perform IADLs, level of social support (especially social companionship), and leisure-activity involvement. Conclusion We summarized the perceptions for preventing the elderly residing at facilities from developing depression, including increased interactions provided by caregivers, more family visits and social companionship, and more frequent leisure activities. Further interventional studies with a larger group of participants and longitudinal design should be conducted to confirm our recommendations.
Loneliness of employees isn’t a new concept but has received relatively little attention by the researchers and so far its effects on the quality of employees’ life and organizational operations have ...been proved by limited empirical researches. In this study, it is assumed that loneliness at work has a negative effect on employee attitudes, instigating low organizational commitment and a desire not to stay in the organization. The aim of this study is to answer the following research questions; ‘Are the lonely employees less committed to their organizations and vice versa?’ and ‘Is loneliness effective on their intention to leave from their organizations?’ and also ‘Is affective commitment a catalyst on the association between loneliness and intention to leave?’ In the light of the related hypotheses, significant relations are found supporting the predictions about the research questions.
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