Acceptance of automated vehicles: Gender effects, but lack of meaningful association with desire for control in Germany and in the U.S.

Although automated vehicles (AVs) come with many promises such as enabling the driver-passenger to perform non-driving-related-tasks or increased safety, the public’s acceptance of AVs will have a crucial impact on whether or not AVs will be ultimately adopted. In particular, the personality trait desire for control may influence the acceptance of AVs, which has received scant research attention to date. Therefore, the authors independently carried out two questionnaire studies: Study 1 in Germany and Study 2 in the U.S. In both studies, the authors applied the self-driving car acceptance scale (SCAS) and the desirability of control scale (DoCS). In Study 1, the authors queried 114 participants (60 female) and in Study 2 the authors sampled data from 601 participants (322 female). In both studies, the findings consistently indicate that the overall DoCS factor was not associated with the overall SCAS factor. The authors only uncovered a weak positive correlation in Study 1, but only for a reduced overall acceptance factor with 10 items obtained by factor analyses instead of the 24 items of the SCAS. Furthermore, the results revealed that women assign significantly lower ratings to the overall acceptance factor of AVs as well as to the desirability for control factor than men, both in Germany and in the U.S., respectively. Despite the influence of gender on acceptance of AVs and DoCS, the authors conclude that there might be either no or only a weak association between desire for control and acceptance of AVs, which needs to be further investigated in future studies.

• Record URL:
  https://doi.org/10.1016/j.trip.2022.100563
• Record URL:
  http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2590198222000264
• Availability:
  • Find a library where document is available. Order URL: http://worldcat.org/issn/25901982
• Supplemental Notes:
  • © 2022 Klemens Weigl, et al. Published by Elsevier Ltd. Abstract reprinted with permission of Elsevier.
• Authors:
  • Weigl, Klemens
  • Nees, Michael A
  • Eisele, Daniel
  • Riener, Andreas
• Publication Date: 2022-3

Language

• English

Media Info

• Media Type: Web
• Features: References;
• Pagination: 100563
• Serial:
  • Transportation Research Interdisciplinary Perspectives
  • Volume: 13
  • Issue Number: 0
  • Publisher: Elsevier
  • ISSN: 2590-1982
  • Serial URL: https://www.journals.elsevier.com/transportation-research-interdisciplinary-perspectives
• Publication flags:

  Open Access (libre)

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Acceptance; Attitudes; Autonomous vehicles; Public opinion
• Geographic Terms: Germany; United States
• Subject Areas: Highways; Safety and Human Factors; Vehicles and Equipment;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01841072
• Record Type: Publication
• Files: TRIS
• Created Date: Mar 29 2022 11:05AM