Pro-Self or Pro-Social? how AI and human job replacement elicit compensatory responses

Artificial intelligence (AI) is increasingly replacing human roles in the workplace, which causes broad concerns about job losses. However, existing studies on AI job replacement have largely neglected how employment instability affects individuals’ consumption habits. This paper conducts five studies to examine how AI job replacement affects individuals’ consumption behavior. Our findings demonstrate that job replacement increases individuals’ perception of threats across various professional backgrounds. Further analysis reveals that, compared to job replacement caused by humans, AI job replacement poses a greater threat to individuals’ need for control than their need for belonging. As a result, individuals replaced by AI are more likely to engage in self-focused conspicuous consumption rather than pro-social behaviors. We confirmed the robustness of these findings by manipulating individual needs and discovered that encouraging self-affirmation significantly reduces both perceived threats and compensatory behaviors, regardless of whether the job replacement is AI-driven or human-driven.