Don't touch that dial: Psychological reactance, transparency, and user acceptance of smart thermostat setting changes.

ABSTRACT: Automation inherently removes a certain amount of user control. If perceived as a loss of freedom, users may experience psychological reactance, which is a motivational state that can lead a person to engage in behaviors to reassert their freedom. In an online experiment, participants set up and communicated with a hypothetical smart thermostat. Participants read notifications about a change in the thermostat's setting. Phrasing of notifications was altered across three dimensions: strength of authoritative language, deviation of temperature change from preferences, and whether or not the reason for the change was transparent. Authoritative language, temperatures outside the user's preferences, and lack of transparency induced significantly higher levels of reactance. However, when the sys

SUBMITTER: Heatherly M 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10365304 | biostudies-literature | 2023

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature