Study: Emotional responses crucial to attitudes about self-driving cars

PULLMAN, Wash. -- When it comes to public attitudes toward using self-driving cars, understanding how the vehicles work is important—but so are less obvious characteristics like feelings of excitement or pleasure and a belief in technology’s social benefits.

Those are key insights of a new study from researchers at Washington State University, who are examining attitudes toward self-driving cars as the technology creeps toward the commercial market—and as questions persist about whether people will readily adopt them.

The study, published in the journal Transportation Research, surveyed 323 people on their perceptions of autonomous vehicles. Researchers found that considerations such as how much people understand and trust the cars are important in determining whether they would eventually choose to use them.

“But in addition, we found that some of the non-functional aspects of autonomous vehicles are also very important,” said Wei Peng, an assistant professor in the Edward R. Murrow College of Communication at WSU.

These included the emotional value associated with using the cars, such as feelings of excitement, enjoyment or novelty; beliefs about the broader impact on society; and curiosity about learning how the technology works and its potential role in the future, Peng said.

In addition, they found that respondents would want to give the technology a test drive before adopting it.

“This is not something where you watch the news and say, ‘I want to buy it or I want to use it,’” Peng said. “People want to try it first.”

The new paper is the latest research on the subject from Peng and doctoral student Kathryn Robinson-Tay. In a paper published in 2023, they examined whether people believed the vehicles were safe, finding that simply knowing more about how the cars work did not improve perceptions about risk—people needed to have more trust in them, too.

The new study examined the next step in the decision-making chain: What would motivate people to actually use an autonomous vehicle?

Answering that question is important as the technology moves toward becoming a reality on the roads. Already, carmakers are adding autonomous features to models, and self-driving taxis have begun operating in a handful of U.S, cities, such as Phoenix, San Francisco and Los Angeles. Fully self-driving vehicles could become available by 2035.

It is estimated they could prevent 90% of accidents while improving mobility for people with limited access to transportation. However, achieving those benefits would require widespread, rapid adoption—a big hurdle given that public attitudes toward the cars have been persistently negative and the rollout of “robotaxies” have been bumpy, with some high-profile accidents and recalls. In a national survey by AAA released in February, 60 percent of respondents said they were afraid to use the cars.

Widespread adoption would be crucial because roadways shared by self-driving and human-driven cars may not bring about safety improvements, in part because self-drivers may not be able to predict and respond to unpredictable human drivers.

One surprise in the study is that respondents did not trust vehicles more when they discovered they were easy to use—which opens a new question for future research: “What is it about thinking the car is easy to use that makes people trust it less?” Robinson-Tay asked.

Attitudes about self-driving cars depend heavily on individual circumstances, and can be nuanced in surprising ways. For example, those with a strong “car-authority identity”—a personal investment in driving and displaying knowledge about automobiles—and more knowledge about self-driving cars were more likely to believe the cars would be easy to use.

But respondents with more knowledge were less likely to view the cars as useful—a separate variable from ease of use.

Other considerations also play a role. Those who can’t drive due to disability or other reasons may have a stronger motivation to use them, as might drivers with significant concerns about heavy traffic or driving in inclement weather.

“If I really worry about snowy weather, like we experience in Pullman in winter, is it going to help?” Peng said. “If I really worry about weather, I might get a car like that if it would help me steer clear of dangerous weather conditions.”