Perceived organizational affiliation and its effects on patient trust: Role modeling with embodied conversational agents.

OBJECTIVE: Verbal and non-verbal behaviors, which are known as "relational contextualization cues", relay information about relationships and how they are structured. We developed a computer-simulated provider conducting an informed consent process for clinical research to investigate the effects of a provider's alignment of interests with a patient, the research team, or a neutral party on patient trust in the provider.

METHODS: Participants (N=43) interacted with a simulated provider for a research informed consent process in a three-arm, counterbalanced, within-subjects experiment. Participants reported their trust in the simulated provider after each treatment.

RESULTS: Participants successfully recognized the alignment manipulation, and perceived the patient-aligned provider as more trustworthy than the other providers. Participants were also more satisfied with the patient-aligned provider, liked this provider more, expressed more desire to continue working with this provider, and stated that they were significantly more likely to sign the consent form after interacting with this provider compared to the other two.

CONCLUSION: Relational contextualization that aligns with the patient increases trust, satisfaction, and willingness to enroll in the context of research informed consent.

PRACTICE IMPLICATIONS: Health providers should align themselves with patients' interests.