From Chatbots to Confidants: A Cross-Cultural Study of LLM Adoption for Emotional Support
Large Language Models (LLMs) are increasingly used not only for instrumental tasks, but as always-available and non-judgmental confidants for emotional support. Yet what drives adoption and how users perceive emotional support interactions across countries remains unknown. To address this gap, we present the first large-scale cross-cultural study of LLM use for emotional support, surveying 4,641 participants across seven countries (USA, UK, Germany, France, Spain, Italy, and The Netherlands). Our results show that adoption rates vary dramatically across countries (from 20% to 59%). Using mixed models that separate cultural effects from demographic composition, we find that: Being aged 25-...
| Authors | Natalia Amat-Lefort, Mert Yazan, Amanda Cercas Curry et al. |
|---|---|
| Primary category | cs.CL |
| Published | 28 April 2026 |
| Last updated at source | 17 May 2026 |
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