Acceptance of robo‐advisors: Effects of financial experience, affective reactions, and self‐enhancement motives

Abstract Robo‐advisors have recently been gaining interest as a technology‐enabled means to make financial management easier. The aim of this study is to examine how people's self‐assessed financial experience, affective reactions, and the interplay with individual values influence their willingness to use a robo‐advisor. We argue that one's self‐assessed financial experience influences the willingness to use robo‐advisors as a result of different affective reactions (i.e., anxiety and joy) associated with its usage. We further posit that the mediating effect of anxiety varies with individual levels of a motivational factor—self‐enhancement—which has been found to regulate anxiety‐related feelings. Based on a large‐scale nationwide survey with an online sample of American adults, it was found that affective responses (i.e., anxiety and joy) explain (i.e., mediate) the effect of self‐assessed financial experience on the willingness to use robo‐advisor. Moreover, the mediating effect of anxiety was found to vary with levels of self‐enhancement motives. The findings suggest that willingness to use robo‐advisors may be increased with positive emotions (e.g., joy) expected from use, while decreased by anticipated negative emotions (e.g., anxiety), and that the relationship may be altered by inducing individuals' self‐enhancement motives (e.g., possibility of accumulating wealth).