Cognitive underpinnings of beliefs and confidence in beliefs about fully automated vehicles
DOI: 10.1016/j.trf.2018.02.029
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Summary
This study investigates the cognitive underpinnings of consumer beliefs and confidence in those beliefs regarding fully automated (Level 5) vehicles. Motivated by the critical role public opinion plays in the adoption of autonomous technology and the development of necessary infrastructure, the research aimed to determine how actual knowledge, perceived knowledge, general self-confidence, and trust in technology shape attitudes and judgmental certainty. The authors hypothesized that consumers would be confident in their opinions despite limited expertise, with confidence driven more by perceived knowledge and general self-confidence than by actual expertise. The study employed a survey design with 114 U.S. Amazon Mechanical Turk "Masters" participants. Participants completed measures of general self-confidence (Personal Evaluation Inventory), trust in technology (faith in general technology and trusting stance), and actual knowledge of autonomous vehicles (an 8-item true/false test). They also reported their perceived knowledge, specific beliefs about vehicle safety and benefits, overall evaluation of the technology, purchase intentions, policy support, and their confidence and certainty in these judgments. Data were analyzed using correlational analyses and bootstrapped mediation analysis. Results indicated that while overall beliefs about fully automated vehicles were moderately favorable, opinions were highly variable. Actual knowledge of the technology was low, with 42.1% of participants scoring at or below chance level on the knowledge test. Crucially, the most negative views of self-driving cars were held by consumers with the least actual knowledge. Trust in technology was positively correlated with favorable beliefs and support for policy. Regarding confidence, 72% of participants reported being "somewhat" or "highly" certain in their judgments, despite their low expertise. Judgmental confidence was significantly correlated with perceived knowledge ($r = 0.456$) and general self-confidence ($r = 0.290$), but not with actual knowledge ($r = 0.053$). A mediation analysis revealed that general self-confidence influences judgmental confidence by increasing perceived knowledge of the topic. Furthermore, confidence was associated with the extremity of opinions; highly confident participants held more polarized (either strongly positive or strongly negative) views. The findings suggest that consumer confidence in opinions about autonomous vehicles is largely driven by superfluous cognitions, specifically perceived knowledge and general self-confidence, rather than factual expertise. This overconfidence, particularly among those with negative and uninformed views, implies that these attitudes may be resistant to standard persuasive communication. The study concludes that while education can address ignorance, direct experience with the technology may be necessary to alter the deeply held, confident negative beliefs of skeptical consumers.
Key finding
Confidence in beliefs about fully automated vehicles was unrelated to actual knowledge (r(113)=0.053, p=0.577) but correlated with perceived knowledge, which mediated the relationship — consumers most confident about FAVs were not the best informed.
Methodology
survey
Sample size: 114
Provenance
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Summary generated by qwen3.8-27b-gittensor on 2026-08-23; verification: pending re-verification.
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