Mother mAI
Reducing Psychological Aggression Against Women with AI
Project Overview
In late 2024, I worked with four other designers to research the topic of dating safety for heterosexual women. As our research progressed, we dived into the problem of psychological aggression towards women and shifted our focus to the perpetrator, men.
Mother mAI (read as “mother may I”) is our proposed solution to reducing online psychological aggression towards women. This AI tool aims to educate male users in their verbal manners in the dating scene. It provides live feedback to flagged users on dating apps, thus reducing malicious behaviors and psychological aggression through long-term learning. We had the pleasure of presenting our idea to a group of designers from Tinder at the end of our project and came out with the feedback, “Wow, we could use this!”
Industry
AI, Online Dating
Year
2024
Duration
3 Months
Responsibilities
User Research, High Fidelity Design, Solution Pitching
PROBLEM SPACE
Women face greater dating safety risks, with psychological aggression affecting millions and leading to mental health issues, risky behaviors, and even fatal outcomes.
Compared to men, women face greater risks and concerns regarding dating safety. Psychological aggression is one of the biggest common issues in the dating space.
61 million women in America have experienced psychological aggression by an intimate partner in their lifetime. Intimate partner violence survivors can experience mental health problems such as depression and post-traumatic stress disorder symptoms. They are at higher risk for engaging in behaviors such as smoking, binge drinking, and risky sexual activity.
Identify Users - Men
Target the Perpetrator, Not the Victim
Along with our secondary research, our group decided that women, as the victims of psychological violence, shouldn’t be the ones to change. Instead, we should focus on identifying and addressing the problems of perpetrators - in this case, we should look at men and their behaviors.
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HYPOTHESIS & HMW
How might we help men build healthy mental models to prevent instances of psychological aggression towards women while dating?
User Interview & Insights
To dive deeper into what influencing factors may drive men to commit acts of psychological aggression, we conducted four 1-1 60-minute interviews with men under the age of 30, currently single, and have dated in the past 6 months.
We set out to learn more on the topics of:
- User’s dating experience in terms of education, expectations, and challenges
- Dating today & society’s changing expectations - gender roles, social circle, and goals
- How to process rejection
“I told her I respect her privacy and her choices. Deep down, I was really bitter.”
“I’m always trying to control how it goes,”
“I am not talking with friends for advice, I only vent to them.”
“Probably I need to keep chasing until she sees me as potential for her.”
Insights
The Chase
“The chase” is an important and exciting phase of early courtship, but there seems to be a disconnection between men and women about when the phase ends.
Support System
Men have a hard time expressing their emotions or communicating their problems to friends and family. There’s a lack of resources for men to learn and get advice for dating.
Control
Control is crucial for men in relationships, influencing everything from start to finish. When control is threatened, like when a woman expresses frustration, men often feel overwhelmed.
Solution Concepts
“A multifaceted approach to rejection violence includes prevention and education, improving support services, creating safe public spaces and changing social norms.”
- World Health Organization
Based on our interview insights, our team developed two solution concepts targeting the opportunity areas. We focused on promoting education and raising support for these concepts.
AI Advice Plug-in
A keyboard AI plug-in in which users can get feedback on their online conversations with their date.
Women’s Wisdom
A community built in 3 stages:
- A relationship advisor streaming online to give advice to the viewers
- An Instagram account posting dating/relationship content to gain traction
- A community where men can raise dating questions and receive feedback from female members
User Interview Concept Review
To verify these concepts, we conducted another round of 1-1 interviews with four men of the same criteria (as the last round).
Insights
AI Assistants are intriguing to men due to their sentiment analysis and objectivity.
Men acknowledge the value and availability of dating resources, but neglect them.
Men value feedback from female friends.
User Journey
Our interview also led us to look at the entry point for our product in the users’ online dating journey.
“I felt like the constant rejection on dating apps made me even more depressed. So I decided to take a break to focus on my mental health.”
- Dave (interviewee)
We want our product to come in early in user's dating journey to help them receive less rejection, learn to process rejection, and prevent the build up of emotions that can lead to psychological aggression.
Mother mAI
“Wow! We could use this!”
- Curtis Stevens (Tinder Experience Strategy Director)
Product Walkthrough
Final Thoughts
Mother mAI still has a long way to go. Besides the concern of user privacy, in our team’s user interview, although users expressed trust towards AI feedback because of its comprehensive database and sourcing ability, they did doubt how effective it would be. This may be resolved with proper onboarding experience or word-of-mouth.
The most important question we are raising at this point is - would this feature educate men and help them grow in self-correcting and learning, or would it become a disguise for men with malicious behavior to have easier access to women?
We look forward to learning more about these questions through user testing and long-term research.
