The effects of trait anxiety and the big five personality traits on self-driving car acceptance

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The effects of trait anxiety and the big five personality traits on self‑driving car acceptance Weina Qu1,2 · Hongli Sun1,2 · Yan Ge1,2 

© Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2020

Abstract Self-driving cars are expected to be integrated into the traffic system in the near future. It is crucial to understand how the public accepts self-driving cars and how adoption rates are influenced. The main purpose of this study was to investigate how trait anxiety and the Big Five personality traits affect acceptance and to provide a personality profile of early adopters of self-driving cars. A total of 527 drivers participated in the research, completing Chinese versions of the Self-driving Car Acceptance Scale, the Trait Anxiety Inventory, and the Big Five Inventory and some demographic questions. The results showed that trait anxiety had a positive effect on perceived automation reliability. Openness and extraversion had positive effects on self-driving car acceptance, while neuroticism had a negative effect. People with high agreeableness had a more positive perspective on the benefits of self-driving cars, but they were also more worried about ease of use and automation reliability. These results help to provide a personality profile of early adopters of self-driving cars. People with certain personality traits are more likely to be starting points for the diffusion of self-driving cars. Keywords  Self-driving cars · Acceptance · Trait anxiety · Big five inventory

Introduction As technology advances, artificial intelligence (AI) technology is developing rapidly. Of all AI products, self-driving cars stand out in terms of meeting people’s needs for increased living standards. Self-driving cars have received substantial attention because of several advantages. First, self-driving cars make hands-free trips possible, providing drivers more freedom to attend to other things (Körber et al. 2016). Second, self-driving cars increase driving safety, reduce traffic congestion and improve the driving environment (Janssens 2014; Piao et al. 2016; Buckley et  al. 2018). Moreover, compared with manually driven cars, self-driving cars reduce fuel consumption, which is environmentally friendly (Fagnant and Kockelman * Yan Ge [email protected] 1

CAS Key Laboratory of Behavioral Science, Institute of Psychology, Beijing, China

2

Department of Psychology, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China



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2015; Sun et al. 2017; Perrine et al. 2020). Therefore, it will be necessary to generalize the use of self-driving cars in the future when the technology is mature. Currently, drivers with cars equipped with driver assistance systems have already enjoyed some functions of selfdriving cars, such as blind spot monitoring, lane keeping and brake assistance. It will not be long until self-driving cars become a part of people’s lives. China has been strongly supporting and actively preparing for the age of self-driving cars. In January 2018, the National Developme