Knowledge is power? The impact of agent knowledge on persuasion effectiveness in online interactions with generative social agents
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Autor:in (Körperschaft)
Publikationsdatum
2026
Typ der Arbeit
Studiengang
Typ
01A - Beitrag in wissenschaftlicher Zeitschrift
Herausgeber:innen
Herausgeber:in (Körperschaft)
Betreuer:in
Übergeordnetes Werk
Computers in Human Behavior Artificial Humans
Themenheft
DOI der Originalpublikation
Link
Zugehörige Forschungsdaten
Reihe / Serie
Reihennummer
Jahrgang / Band
9
Ausgabe / Nummer
Seiten / Dauer
100337
Patentnummer
Verlag / Herausgebende Institution
Elsevier
Verlagsort / Veranstaltungsort
Auflage
Version
Programmiersprache
Abtretungsempfänger:in
Praxispartner:in/Auftraggeber:in
Zusammenfassung
Generative social agents (GSAs) have become highly capable of shaping people’s attitudes and behaviors. Regulating which knowledge is available to GSAs may provide a mechanism for guiding persuasive outcomes that align with user goals and values. Following this approach, we investigate the impacts of self-, user-, and context-related agent knowledge on user attitudes and compliance. To this end, an online experiment (N = 113) was conducted that featured screen-based persuasive GSAs with varying knowledge configurations. The experiment involved a resource allocation paradigm that covered three domains: Fitness, nutrition, and investment. As part of the experimental paradigm, the GSA advised participants to change their previously allocated resources. Subsequently, participants had the option to change their resource allocation. Persuasion effectiveness was measured by the amount of resources re-distributed in accordance with the agent’s suggestions. Our results partially support that the availability of domain-specific context-knowledge and user-related knowledge impact agent persuasiveness – mediated by human attitudes towards the agent and its persuasive messages. Available self-knowledge about the agent’s own role and personality did not have a significant impact on persuasion effectiveness. This is likely due to lacking strength of experimental manipulation or insufficient statistical power. Nonetheless, our preliminary findings highlight the need to identify relevant knowledge configurations for GSAs to enable responsible and effective persuasion, which has important implications for the deployment of GSAs in sensitive areas like healthcare and education.
Schlagwörter
Fachgebiet (DDC)
Veranstaltung
Startdatum der Ausstellung
Enddatum der Ausstellung
Startdatum der Konferenz
Enddatum der Konferenz
Datum der letzten Prüfung
ISBN
ISSN
2949-8821
Sprache
Englisch
Während FHNW Zugehörigkeit erstellt
Ja
Zukunftsfelder FHNW
Publikationsstatus
Veröffentlicht
Begutachtung
peer-reviewed
Open Access-Status
Gold
Lizenz
Zitation
Vonschallen, S., Thür, A., Schmiedel, T., & Eyssel, F. (2026). Knowledge is power? The impact of agent knowledge on persuasion effectiveness in online interactions with generative social agents. Computers in Human Behavior Artificial Humans, 9, 100337. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chbah.2026.100337