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The increasing use of chatbots for emotional support highlights the need to better understand the motivations and psychological mechanisms driving their adoption, which remain underexplored. This mixed-methods study in Hong Kong, comprising two focus groups (N = 13) and a survey (N = 1,041), extends the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT) by incorporating emotional experiences. Our findings indicate that the intention to use chatbots is positively influenced by companionship, hedonic experiences, and feeling safe. Feeling safe comes from perceiving chatbots as private, non-judgmental spaces for emotional expression. Technical (performance expectancy), personal (digital literacy), and situational (facilitating conditions) factors further shape these emotional experiences. By integrating technology adoption theories with emotional dimensions, this study offers a novel framework for understanding chatbot use as emotional support tools and provides practical insights for their design and implementation across diverse sociocultural contexts.
Liu et al. (Wed,) studied this question.