In Automatic We Trust: Investigating the Impact of Trust, Control, Personality Characteristics, and Extrinsic and Intrinsic Motivations on the Acceptance of Autonomous Vehicles

Abstract

According to industry research, the automation of vehicles promises a revolution in traffic safety, mobility, and quality of life. However, the success of such vehicles depends on their acceptance. This study investigates the influence of trust in technology, concerns of giving up control, perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, the personality factor innovativeness, and the enjoyment of driving a car on the a priori intention to adopt an autonomous vehicle. By means of an online survey with 369 German participants, our study shows that trust in the technology and the concern about handing over control to a machine go hand in hand as respondents' cognitive and affective perception of this innovation. Moreover, perceived usefulness represents an influential factor, while the enjoyment of driving a car is a barrier to the technology's acceptance. Innovators represent a promising target for campaigns, as they are more likely to adopt an autonomous vehicle.

How different autonomous vehicle presentation influences its acceptance: Is a communal car better than agentic one?

“…[66,67]) our study supported the positive effect of perceived usefulness on the behavioral intention to use both AVs. Contrary to Hein et al [68] as well as Lee et al [4] and Hegner et al [69] and, similarly to Xu et al [29], we found impact of perceived ease of use on the behavioral intention to use AVs, but in our experiment this effect was mediated by the perceived usefulness in both conditions. While Choi and Ji [48] reported that perceived ease of use did not influence the perceived usefulness, our findings show the contrary.…”

“…Moreover, Choi and Ji [48] reported that perceived ease of use did not influence the perceived usefulness, while both those factors positively impacted intention to use AVs. Moreover, Hein et al [68] as well as Lee et al [4] and Hegner et al [69] showed that the perceived ease of use did not influence the intention to use (contrary to the effect of perceived usefulness), while it influenced positively perceived usefulness and intention to use. Interestingly, in the case of level 3 AVs, it was reported that it was the ease of use which predicted the intention to use and not perceived usefulness [30].…”

“…Many previous studies underlined the role of trust in terms of the acceptance of AVs (e.g. [1,28,69,135]). We believe that trust may be one of the factors which explains the higher acceptance of communal AVs over agentic AVs, even in the case of goal-oriented individuals (agent's perspective).…”

A Meta-analysis on Children’s Trust in Social Robots

“…Malle et al [68,92] have identified four main dimensions of trust in robots (reliable, capable, ethical, and sincere), which they argue can be further grouped into two main dimensions; capacity trust (reliable, capable) and moral trust (ethical, sincere). To a certain degree, trust in a (social) robot's capacity is akin to trust in other types of autonomous intelligent devices, such as autonomous cars [38,56]. However, in such devices social trust typically does not play a role, unlike with social robots, where interpersonal elements begin to be introduced.…”

Autonomous delivery vehicles to fight the spread of Covid-19 – How do men and women differ in their acceptance?

“…Over the last couple of years, ADVs have only been discussed as a conceptual idea. Despite the fact that several researchers have investigated the acceptance of autonomous vehicles (AVs) in general (e.g., autonomous cars and shuttles) ( Hohenberger et al, 2016 , Panagiotopoulos and Dimitrakopoulos, 2018 , Hegner et al, 2019 ), very little is known about the acceptance of ADVs (Kapser and Abdelrahman, 2020b, 2019, 2020a; Marsden et al, 2018 , Pani et al, 2020 ). To get a more comprehensive overview of the constructs determining user acceptance of ADVs, within this study a modified UTAUT2 model, which has been verified in previous research is adopted and extended with additional important constructs based on a systematic literature review ( Kapser and Abdelrahman, 2019 , 2020b).…”