The effects of religiosity and gender on attitudes and trust toward autonomous vehicles

Abstract

Autonomous vehicles (AVs) and self-driving technology have become increasingly important in transportation industry, as they are believed to offer several social and environmental benefits, such as lesser air pollution, traffic jams, and car accidents. However, as any other new technology, AVs raise some skepticism and mistrust. For example, prior research shows that women are less trustful toward AVs than men. In the quest to find boundary conditions to this gender effect, we conducted a survey (n = 227). It reveals that religiosity impacts how men (versus women) respond to AVs. Specifically, we found that highly religious men had more negative AV attitudes and were less trustful toward AVs than nonreligious men. Furthermore, highly religious men demonstrated significantly lower trust and less positive attitudes toward AVs than highly religious women. Our findings might help AV producers and governmental institutions in segmentation, targeting, and promoting self-driving technology.