Insights into Autonomous Vehicles Aversion: Unveiling the Ripple Effect of Negative Media on Perceived Risk, Anxiety, and Negative WOM

Abstract

This study delves into the reluctance to adopt autonomous vehicles (AVs), treating AV aversion as a multifaceted psychological and behavioral phenomenon encompassing cognitive judgments, affective responses, and behavioral intentions. Leveraging the environment-product-human-behavior framework, an AV aversion model (AAM) is developed to explore human-AV interaction. Survey data from MTurk in the U.S. reveals significant differences in perception between fully autonomous vehicles (FAVs) and partially autonomous vehicles (PAVs). Findings show that negative media exposure influences perceived risk, anxiety, and negative word-of-mouth (WOM) intention. Perceived risk contributes to anxiety, while the combination of anxiety and negative media encourages negative WOM intention. The study elucidates a cascading effect from negative media to risk perception, then to AV anxiety, culminating in negative WOM. Multi-group analysis highlights a significant disparity between FAVs and PAVs in the link between negative media exposure and negative WOM intention. Understanding AV aversion offers valuable insights to address human-AV interaction.