Social robots are reported to hold great potential for education. However, both scholars and key stakeholders worry about children’s social-emotional development being compromised. In aiming to provide new insights into the impact that social robots can have on the social-emotional development of children, the current study interviewed teachers who use social robots in their day-to-day educational practice. The results of our interviews with these experienced teachers indicate that the social robots currently used in education pose little threat to the social-emotional development of children. Children with special needs seem to be more sensitive to social-affective bonding with a robot compared to regular children. This bond seems to have positive effects in enabling them to more easily connect with their human peers and teachers. However, when robots are being introduced more regularly, daily, without the involvement of a human teacher, new issues could arise. For now, given the current state of technology and the way social robots are being applied, other (ethical) issues seem to be more urgent, such as privacy, security and the workload of teachers. Future studies should focus on these issues first, to ensure a safe and effective educational environment for both children and teachers.
Obesity has become a major societal problem worldwide [1][2]. The main reason for severe overweight is excessive intake of energy, in relation to the individual needs of a human body. Obesity is associated with poor eating habits and/or a sedentary lifestyle. A significant part of the obese population (40%) belongs to a vulnerable target group of emotional eaters, who overeat due to negative emotions [3]. There is a need for self-management support and personalized coaching to enhance emotional eaters in recognising and self-regulating their emotions.Over the last years, coaching systems have been developed for behavior change support, healthy lifestyle, and physical activity support [4]-[9]. Existing virtual coach applications lack systematic evaluation of coaching strategies and usually function as (tele-)monitoring systems. They are limited to giving general feedback to the user on achieved goals and/or accomplished (online) assignments.Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) focuses on getting more control over one’s ownemotions by reinforcing skills in mindfulness, emotion regulation, and stress tolerance [10]. Emotion regulation is about recognizing and acknowledging emotions and accepting the fact that they come and go. The behavior change strategies within DBT are based on validation and dialectics [11]. Dialectics changes the users’ attitude and behavior by creating incongruence between an attitude and behavior since stimuli or the given information contradict with each other.The ultimate goal of the virtual coach is to raise awareness of emotional eaters on their own emotions, and to enhance a positive change of attitude towards accepting the negative emotions they experience. This should result in a decrease of overeating and giving in to binges. We believe that the integration of the dialectical behavior change strategies and persuasive features from the Persuasive System Design Model by Kukkonen and Harjumaa [12] will enhance the personalization of the virtual coach for this vulnerable group. We aim at developing a personalized virtual coach ‘Denk je zèlf!’ (Dutch for ‘Develop a wise mind and counsel yourself’) providing support for self-regulation of emotions for young obese emotional eaters. This poster presents an eCoaching model and a research study protocol aiming at the validation of persuasive coaching strategies based on behavior change techniques using dialectical strategies. Based on the context (e.g., location), emotional state of the user, and natural language processing, the virtual coach application enables tailoring of the real-time feedback to the individual user. Virtual coach application communicates with the user over a chat timeline and provides personal feedback.The research protocol decribes the two weeks field study on validating persuasive coaching strategies for emotional eaters. Participants (N=30), recruited via a Dutch franchise organization of dietitian nutritionists, specialized in treating emotional eating behaviors, will voluntarily participate in this research study. Participants will be presented with short dialogues (existing questions and answers) and will be asked to select the preferred coaching strategy (validating or a dialectical), according to their (current) emotions. To trigger a certain emotion (e.g., the affect that fits best with the chosen coaching strategy), a set of pictures will be shown to the user that evoke respectively sadness, anger, fear, and disgust [13].Participants will be asked to fill out the demographics data ((nick) name, age, gender, weight, length, place of residence) and three questionnaires: • Dutch Eating Behavior Questionnaire (DEBQ) [14],• Five Factor Personality Inventory (FFPI) [15], • Quality of Life Index Questionnaire [16].This research study aims at answering the following research questions: “Which coaching strategies do users with a specific type of emotional eating behavior benefit most from while consulting their personalized virtual coach?; “Which coaching strategies are optimal for which emotions?” and “Which coaching approach do users prefer in which context, e.g. time of the day, before/after a craving?”
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Background: Around 13% of the world’s population suffers from obesity. More than 40% of people with obesity display emotional eating behaviour (eating in response to negative emotions or distress). It is an alternate to moreeffective coping strategies for negative emotions. Our study explored the opportunities for helping adults with emotional overeating using a virtual coach, aiming to identify preferences for tailored coaching strategies applicable in a personal virtual coach environment. Three different coaching strategies were tested: a validating, a focus-on-change, and a dialectical one – the latter being a synthesis of the first two strategies. Methods: A qualitative study used vignettes reflecting the two most relevant situations for people with emotional eating: 1. experiencing negative emotions, with ensuing food cravings; and 2. after losing control to emotional eating, with ensuing feelings of low self-esteem. Applied design: 2 situations × 3 coaching strategies. Participants: 71 adult women (Mage 44.4/years, range 19–70, SD = 12.86) with high scores on the DEBQ-emotional eating scale (Memo 3.65, range 1.69–4.92, SD = .69) with mean BMI 30.1 (range 18–46, SD = 6.53). They were recruited via dieticians’ practices, were randomly assigned to the conditions and asked how they would face and react to thepresented coaching strategies. Data were transcribed and a thematic analysis was conducted. Results: Qualitative results showed that participants valued both the validating coaching strategy and the focus-onchange strategy, but indicated that a combination of validation and focus-on-change provides both mental supportand practical advice. Data showed that participants differed in their level of awareness of the role that emotions play in their overeating and the need for emotion-regulation skills. Conclusion: The design of the virtual coach should be based on dialectical coaching strategies as preferred by participants with emotional eating behaviour. It should be tailored to the different stages of awareness of their emotions and individual emotion-regulation skills.
