Social Life Simulation for Non-Cognitive Skills Learning

Non-cognitive skills are crucial for personal and social life well-being, and such skill development can be supported by narrative-based (e.g., storytelling) technologies. While generative AI enables interactive and role-playing storytelling, little is known about how users engage with and perceive the use of AI in social life simulation for non-cognitive skills learning. Additionally, the benefits of AI mentorship on self-reflection awareness and ability in this context remain largely underexplored. To this end, we introduced Simulife++, an interactive platform enabled by a large language model (LLM). The system allows users to act as protagonists, creating stories with one or multiple AI-based characters in diverse social scenarios. In particular, we expanded the Human-AI interaction to a Human-AI-AI collaboration by including a Sage Agent, who acts as a bystander, providing users with some perspectives and guidance on their choices and conversations in terms of non-cognitive skills to promote reflection. In a within-subject user study, our quantitative results reveal that, when accompanied by Sage Agent, users exhibit significantly higher levels of reflection on motivation, self-perceptions, and resilience & coping, along with an enhanced experience of narrative transportation. Additionally, our qualitative findings suggest that Sage Agent plays a crucial role in promoting reflection on non-cognitive skills, enhancing social communication and decision-making performance, and improving overall user experience within Simulife++. Multiple supportive relationships between Sage Agent and users were also reported. We offer design implications for the application of generative AI in narrative solutions and the future potential of Sage Agent for non-cognitive skill development in broader social contexts.