Social chatbots should correct their own errors rather than outsource corrections to external sources, because self-correction preserves user trust and leverages the social relationship to amplify belief change.
When social chatbots make mistakes, how they fix them matters for user trust. This study tested three error correction approaches: external webpages, self-correction, and expert chatbots. Self-correcting chatbots maintained credibility better, and users who felt socially connected to the chatbot were more likely to believe the correction—but only when the chatbot corrected itself.