Consumer Psychology & AI

How can we calibrate human trust in AI, to avoid over-trusting or under-trusting it?

Artificial Intelligence promises to create vast enhancement in products and services, from smarter and cheaper algorithmic financial advisors, to self-driving cars that surpass human driver safety. Yet, people often mistrust new technologies, due to a variety of psychological and cultural reasons. Furthermore, introducing AI often alters the tradeoffs involved—e.g. increasing speed but reducing accuracy. This project tries to identify the causes of trust in, and aversion to, AI products. We explore when fears by consumers and citizens are warranted, and what tradeoffs different stakeholders are willing to accept. We identify how to overcome excessive trust or irrational aversion to AI-driven decision-making in consumer products and government services.

 

Key References

Dong, M., Conway, J. R., Bonnefon, J.-F., Shariff, A., & Rahwan, I. (2026). Fears about artificial intelligence across 20 countries and six domains of application. American Psychologist, 81(1), 53–67. https://doi.org/10.1037/amp0001454

Schmidt, E.-M., Bersch, C., Köbis, N., Bonnefon, J.-F., Rahwan, I., & Dong, M. (2025). First interactions with generative chatbots shape local but not global sentiments about AI. Computers in Human Behavior: Artificial Humans, 6, Article 100223. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chbah.2025.100223

Dong, M., Bonnefon, J.-F., & Rahwan, I. (2025). Heterogeneous preferences and asymmetric insights for AI use among welfare claimants and non-claimants. Nature Communications, 16, Article 6973. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-025-62440-3

Shariff, A., Bonnefon, J.-F., & Rahwan, I. (2021). How safe is safe enough? Psychological mechanisms underlying extreme safety demands for self-driving cars. Transportation Research Part C: Emerging Technologies, 126, Article 103069. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.trc.2021.103069

Awad, E., Levine, S., Kleiman-Weiner, M., Dsouza, S., Tenenbaum, J. B., Shariff, A., Bonnefon, J.-F., & Rahwan, I. (2020). Drivers are blamed more than their automated cars when both make mistakes. Nature Human Behaviour, 4(2), 134–143. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-019-0762-8
[Selected media: Cosmos, Ars Technica, Phys.org]

Shariff, A., Bonnefon, J.-F., & Rahwan, I. (2017). Psychological roadblocks to the adoption of self-driving vehicles. Nature Human Behaviour, 1(10), 694–696. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-017-0202-6 [Selected media: Summary by APS, MIT News Q&A, New York Times Magazine]