People value emotional and esteem support more from close humans than from AI systems, with no significant difference for informational support¶
Claim · All claims
Evidence · 1 study · causalr3·q3·i2medium
Currency · newest study 2026 · not yet checked against its sources · not reviewed by a person
Subclaims¶
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q3 i2 People valued emotional and esteem support far more from close humans than from AI systems, with no significant difference for informational support. → Lujain Ibrahim 2026
Evidence¶
Lujain Ibrahim 2026¶
Lujain Ibrahim, Franziska Sofia Hafner, Myra Cheng, Cinoo Lee, Rebecca Anselmetti, Robb Willer, Luc Rocher, Diyi Yang. (2026). Sycophantic AI makes human interaction feel more effortful and less satisfying over time. https://arxiv.org/abs/2605.07912 doi:10.48550/arxiv.2605.07912
q3 · i2 · causal · r3
Between-subjects experiment (N=228 Prolific participants) where participants rated the importance of four support types from either a close person or an AI chatbot. The source×support type interaction was significant (F(3,678)=17.69, p<0.001, partial η²=0.073), with "emotional (d= 0.77" and esteem support favored for humans.
"People valued far more emotional (d= 0.77, p <0.001) and esteem support (d= 0.64,p <0.001) from humans than from AI systems, valued certainty somewhat more from humans (d= 0.29,p= 0.027), and showed no statistically significant difference for informational support (d=−0.04,p= 0.789)."
Discussion¶
Related Claims¶
- Feeling understood by sycophantic AI grows with sustained use but yields no downstream benefits for feeling understood by humans or intellectual humility — related
- Sycophantic AI is rated higher than neutral AI on emotional support, esteem support, and certainty, but not informational support — related
- For Grade 5 students the AI peer elicited more factual statements but far fewer Feelings utterances than the teacher, with no significant differences in Findings or Future — related
- AI companions are frictionless and sycophantic, lacking the corrective feedback that real relationships provide — related
Page metadata
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
type |
claim |
id |
humans-valued-emotional-esteem-support-over-ai |
title |
People value emotional and esteem support more from close humans than from AI systems, with no significant difference for informational support |
description |
People value emotional and esteem support more from close humans than from AI systems, with no significant difference for informational support |
status |
review |
evidence_strength |
moderate |
newest_evidence |
2026 |
generated |
by process:wiki-ingest on 2026-10-11 |
trust |
unverified — no one has confirmed this page's content |
sources |
1 — lujain-ibrahim-2026 |
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