Grateful Chatbots: Public Sensemaking through Individual Gratitude Interventions

This paper outlines a research plan that aims to build resilient and adaptive systems for public sensemaking through conversational agent-enabled, narrative-based, autonomous self-actualization interventions. Our research follows a design science research (DSR) methodological approach that is comprised of iterative design cycles (DC) and provides design principles (DP) and testable propositions (TP) as an outcome. The individual-centered approach serves as a basis to explore ways to harness these narrative-based interventions for large-scale public sensemaking. The proposed DP have yet to be fully evaluated as testable propositions in an experimental setting, but we are considering future directions for improving the developmental intervention or allowing for easier evaluation.