My research focus is on the psychology of digitization and modern technologies. The aim is to create excellent psychological research to contribute to addressing societal changes that are driven by advancing digitization and the development of AI-based systems. Thus, AI must not be considered as a pure or optimized replacement for humans but should be understood as a supporting tool for human activities. To realize that people need to be enabled to use AI in a meaningful, productive, and beneficial way.
Previous research
In the past two years, I have investigated the acceptance and perceptions of modern technologies (e.g., AI: Hudecek et al., 2024; blockchain: Hudecek et al., under review; smartphones: Hudecek et al., 2023a) in different contexts (e.g., healthcare: Gaube et al., 2023; organizations: Hudecek et al., 2023b, Hudecek & Grünwald, in prep.; finance: Hudecek & Böhm, in prep.). An important milestone was my successful acquisition of a third-party funded project (project volume: € 451,998.60) dealing with autonomous driving in the context of autonomous shuttle buses. The main focus of our research was on the passengers’ acceptance, attitudes, and intention to use (e.g., Schandl et al. 2023a, 2023b).
Digitization and artificial intelligence
The results of my research on the acceptance of AI show that people’s perception is very context-specific. For example, data from a 2×3 scenario-based experiment (N=266) show that people prefer the advice of human doctors compared to an AI when it comes to their own situation. In contrast, the participants made no differences between the sources of medical advice when it comes to assessing the situation of an average person (Hudecek et al., 2024).
Regarding financial investments, results follow a different pattern (N=360): here, people do not care whether they are advised by a human or an AI. Rather, the crucial factor is whether profit (positive assessment of both human and AI adviser, respectively) or loss (negative assessment of both human and AI adviser, respectively) is made (Hudecek et al., in prep.).
Regarding the organizational context, two studies comparing AI-assisted feedback to human feedback (N=491; Hudecek & Grünwald, in prep.) and decisions of human recruiters to AI-based recruiters (N=379; Hudecek et al., 2023b, S. 2.768) revealed again a more general pattern: positive feedback and hiring decision provided by a human source were significantly better accepted and evaluated as higher in quality compared to the equivalent feedback or hiring decision provided by AI.
These findings underpin that adoption of AI tends to be context-specific and should not be considered simply in terms of algorithm aversion (Dietvorst et al., 2015) or algorithm appreciation (Logg et al., 2019).
Mobility
As part of a research project on the passengers’s acceptance of and attittudes towards autonomous shuttle buses, my team and I were able to conduct several empirical studies. For this purpose, two autonomous shuttle buses were available which could be tested under real conditions in the industrial park in the city of Regensburg, Germany.
Using a latent profile analysis, four user groups were identified on the basis of 16 indicator variables (Schandl et al., 2023a). The identified profiles predict the intention to use (ITU) and differ significantly in their characteristics, which suggests that a target group-oriented approach might be beneficial from a practical perspective.
In another study (Schandl et al., 2023b), the influence of psychological distance on the perception of autonomous vehicles was investigated. For this purpose, psychological distance was manipulated on two different dimensions in a 2x2x2 scenario-based experiment (N = 2,114). In addition, the driving modality was varied for comparison purposes: Subjects imagined either themselves or an average person (social distance) using a traditional or autonomous bus (driving modality) either today or in ten years (temporal distance). Our results show a main effect for driving mode and social distance, with a higher intention to use (ITU) for autonomous vehicles and average people. In addition, an interaction effect with temporal social distance was found, which applies equally to conventional buses and autonomous buses. The results of our studies indicate that psychological distance influences the ITU of buses in general and not specifically the autonomous type. From a practical perspective, autonomous buses should therefore be presented as close regarding the temporal perspective as possible and concrete and detailed information should be provided.