Implicit and Explicit Trust Behavior: Does Stereotype Congruence Affect User Trust in a Home Automation Device?

Although trust is widely accepted as important for technology adoption and usage, it has received little attention in home automation, where users interact closely with these devices to enhance their quality of life. Research is needed to investigate how design considerations such as agent gender and automation location impact trust. This study expands on a pilot study by examining how stereotype congruence impacts implicit and explicit measures of trust in home automation devices. A smart lock simulation was utilized to examine how users interacted with systems that confirm and violate social expectations. The results show that users displayed more trusting behavior towards systems that were stereotype congruent than incongruent. That is, users extended their expectations of stereotypical social behaviors to their interaction with the home automation simulation. In addition explicit trust measures, or directly observable behaviors, differed from implicit trust measures, such as reaction time with the system. These findings provide a foundation for empirically testing and understanding the complex relationship between users and increasingly social automated devices.