Public Acceptance of Autonomous Vehicles in China

Autonomous vehicles (AVs) have attracted extensive attention worldwide for their huge potential to revolutionize urban cities. The diffusion of AVs in cities will largely depend on public acceptance of AVs. But many studies revealed that people hold a high level of concern about AVs. This study aims to enrich our understanding of public acceptance of AVs in China, both at the explicit level and at the implicit level. We also attempt to enhance people’s positive attitudes toward AVs by Evaluative Conditioning (EC). Study 1 found that participants recognized the benefits of AVs, but were also concerned about them. Moreover, participants showed only moderate trust in AVs. In Study 2, it was observed that participants mainly showed positive implicit attitudes toward AVs and there was no significant correlation between implicit and explicit attitudes toward AVs. In Study 3, EC offered an alternative way to change implicit attitudes. Specifically, implicit attitudes toward AVs were positively increased through EC, whereas explicit attitudes did not change significantly. This research provides several theoretical and practical implications. The findings support the notion that explicit and implicit attitudes involve independent psychological processes, and that implicit attitude can be changed through EC.