Open AccessThe Effects of Situational and Individual Factors on Algorithm Acceptance in COVID-19-Related Decision-Making: A Preregistered Online Experiment
Author(s) -
Sonja Utz,
Lara N. Wolfers,
Anja S. Göritz
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
human machine communication journal/human-machine communication journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 2638-6038
pISSN - 2638-602X
DOI - 10.30658/hmc.3.3
Subject(s) - preference , situational ethics , psychology , morality , perspective (graphical) , conventionalism , social psychology , variance (accounting) , computer science , artificial intelligence , epistemology , mathematics , statistics , accounting , philosophy , business
In times of the COVID-19 pandemic, difficult decisions such as the distribution of ventilators must be made. For many of these decisions, humans could team up with algorithms; however, people often prefer human decision-makers. We examined the role of situational (morality of the scenario; perspective) and individual factors (need for leadership; conventionalism) for algorithm preference in a preregistered online experiment with German adults (n = 1,127). As expected, algorithm preference was lowest in the most moral-laden scenario. The effect of perspective (i.e., decision-makers vs. decision targets) was only significant in the most moral scenario. Need for leadership predicted a stronger algorithm preference, whereas conventionalism was related to weaker algorithm preference. Exploratory analyses revealed that attitudes and knowledge also mattered, stressing the importance of individual factors.