SocialSim: Towards Socialized Simulation of Emotional Support Conversation

Copyright © 2025 Central South University. Licensed under CC BY-NC 4.0.

Overview

The dataset contains 3,229 high-quality emotional support dialogues between seekers and supporters, along with detailed user profiles that provide rich contextual information for each conversation participant.

Data and codes for AAAI 2025 paper: SocialSim: Towards Socialized Simulation of Emotional Support Conversation

Dataset Overview

Dataset Statistics

Component	Count	Description
Total Dialogues	3,229	Complete emotional support conversations
User Profiles	3,229	Corresponding user profiles for each dialogue

Data Files

• SocialSim_SSConv_ESC_dataset_full_3229.json: Complete dialogue dataset with emotional support conversations
• SocialSim_UserProfile_full_3229.json: User profiles with demographic and psychological information

Dataset Components

Emotional Support Conversations (SocialSim_SSConv_ESC_dataset_full_3229.json)

Each dialogue contains:

{
  "ID": 1,
  "Dialogue": [
	{
	  "Turn": 1,
	  "Seeker": "Initial message from the person seeking help"
	},
	{
	  "Turn": 2,
	  "Supporter Step by Step Reasoning": "[Detailed reasoning process]",
	  "Supporter": "Supportive response with empathy and guidance"
	}
	// ... additional turns
  ]
}

User Profiles (SocialSim_UserProfile_full_3229.json)

Each user profile includes:

{
  "ID": 1,
  "Gender": "Female",
  "Age": 18,
  "Occupation": "Student",
  "Personality": "Closedness, Unconscientiousness, Introversion, Neuroticism, Agreeableness",
  "Topic": "Study",
  "Subtopic": "Exam Anxiety Management, Study Method",
  "Situation": "Brief description of the current situation",
  "Event Time": "Morning",
  "Event Location": "School",
  "Event Participants": "Biology teacher, Classmates, Me",
  "Event Description": "Detailed narrative of the situation",
  "Emotional Experience Words": "Fear, Trembling, Scared, Terrified, Anxiety",
  "Coped Strategies and Effects": "Description of current coping mechanisms",
  "Goals and Expectations": "Expected outcomes from the conversation"
}

License

This dataset is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC 4.0).

For the full license text, visit: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/

Citation

If you use this dataset or your research is related to our paper, please cite:

@inproceedings{chen2025socialsim,
  title={SocialSim: Towards Socialized Simulation of Emotional Support Conversation},
  author={Chen, Zhuang and Cao, Yaru and Bi, Guanqun and Wu, Jincenzi and Zhou, Jinfeng and Xiao, Xiyao and Chen, Si and Wang, Hongning and Huang, Minlie},
  booktitle={Proceedings of the AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence},
  volume={39},
  number={2},
  pages={1274--1282},
  year={2025}
}

Contributing

This dataset is maintained by the CoAI Group at Central South University. For questions, suggestions, or collaboration inquiries, please contact the research group.

Contact

• Research Group: Central South University
• Year: 2025

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