Immerse & befriend: The role of synthetic relationship perception and narrative transportation in a mental health app

The global mental health crisis has driven the rise of apps using conversational agents (CAs) to complement or replace human professional support. Offline, the success of such interventions often depends on the relationship between the help-seeker and the support provider. Online, psychological processes elicited by specific app features relating to the CA and its unique story design might play a significant role. However, research on these processes and their consequences on user engagement and well-being is scarce. To shed light on this, we conducted a cross-sectional study with 348 active users of the mental health app Betwixt. The app integrates a scripted CA as a mentor, guiding users through levels of self-development within a dream-like fantasy narrative. We tested how perceived synthetic relationships with the CA (based on the Relational Models Theory, Fiske, 1992) and narrative transportation (i.e., the extent to which users become absorbed in the story) relate to app engagement and perceived stress. Our findings indicate that a strong sense of narrative transportation and perceiving the CA as friend-like positively predict hedonic benefits and future usage intentions. However, these factors were not significantly associated with perceived stress. Our results contribute to the emerging field of synthetic relationships and highlight the potential of narrative transportation for developers of apps using similar designs. We also discuss the ethical concerns of fostering friend-like relationships with CAs and their practical implications for developers and mental health professionals.