Abstract

Automation inherently removes a certain amount of user control. If perceived as a loss of freedom, users may experience psychological reactance, which is a motivational state that can lead a person to engage in behaviors to reassert their freedom. In an online experiment, participants set up and communicated with a hypothetical smart thermostat. Participants read notifications about a change in the thermostat's setting. Phrasing of notifications was altered across three dimensions: strength of authoritative language, deviation of temperature change from preferences, and whether or not the reason for the change was transparent. Authoritative language, temperatures outside the user's preferences, and lack of transparency induced significantly higher levels of reactance. However, when the system presented a temperature change outside of the user's preferences, reactance was mitigated and user acceptance was higher if the thermostat's operations were transparent. Providing justification may be less likely to induce psychological reactance and increase user acceptance. This supports efforts to use behavioral approaches, such as demand response, to increase sustainability and limit the impacts of climate change.

Department(s)

Psychological Science

Second Department

Engineering Management and Systems Engineering

Comments

National Institute of Food and Agriculture, Grant 2017-67008-26145

International Standard Serial Number (ISSN)

1932-6203

Document Type

Article - Journal

Document Version

Final Version

File Type

text

Language(s)

English

Rights

© 2023 The Authors, All rights reserved.

Creative Commons Licensing

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Publication Date

01 Jul 2023

PubMed ID

37486889

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