Association Between Propensity to Trust Automation (PTT) and Personal Characteristics and Traits

This study examined associations between propensity to trust automation (PTT) and 27 other personal characteristic dimensions across 11 constructs: cultural values, attentional control, mood, personality, risk propensity, decision-making style, reasoning, negative attitudes, expectancy, self-efficacy, and the perfect automation schema. A total of 166 participants completed pre-experiment surveys before working with automated drone teammates in a simulated threat-detection task. PTT correlated most strongly with performance expectancy ( r = .46), effort expectancy ( r = .30), negative attitudes toward interacting with autonomous systems ( r = −.28), and the high expectations subscale of the perfect automation schema ( r = .24). Smaller but significant correlations were observed for intellect, masculinity, power distance, and risk propensity. PTT also correlated significantly with post-experiment trust and satisfaction. These results suggest that PTT is associated primarily with expectations about automation and negative attitudes toward interacting with it, and only secondarily with broader personal characteristics.