Generative Confidants: How do People Experience Trust in Emotional Support from Generative AI (Dataset), 2025

Volpato, Riccardo (2025). Generative Confidants: How do People Experience Trust in Emotional Support from Generative AI (Dataset), 2025. [Data Collection]. Colchester, Essex: UK Data Service. 10.5255/UKDA-SN-858165

People are increasingly using generative artificial intelligence (AI) for emotional support, creating trust-based interactions with limited predictability and transparency. We address the fragmented nature of research on trust in AI through a multidisciplinary conceptual review, examining theoretical foundations for understanding trust in the emerging context of emotional support from generative AI. Through an in-depth literature search across human-computer interaction, computer-mediated communication, social psychology, mental health, economics, sociology, philosophy, and science and technology studies, we developed two principal contributions. First, we summarise relevant definitions of trust across disciplines. Second, based on our first contribution, we define trust in the context of emotional support provided by AI and present a categorisation of relevant concepts that recur across well-established research areas. Our work equips researchers with a map for navigating the literature and formulating hypotheses about AI-based mental health support, as well as important theoretical, methodological, and practical implications for advancing research in this area.

Data description (abstract)

After obtaining approval for our study from the ethics board of our institution, and recruiting 24 individuals that fit our screening criteria, we collected 92 diary entries, 75 chat transcripts, and 24 interview transcripts about our participants emotional support interactions with generative AI. Our diary questions and interview guide centered around our research questions about how people experience trust towards generative AI as a source of emotional support.

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