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Personality facets and ethics positions as directives for self-driving vehicles

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  • Smith, Brent

Abstract

This article provides an exploration into how people of today would prefer the innovative self-driving vehicles (SDVs) of tomorrow to reconcile life and death decisions in accidents involving passengers and pedestrians. While SDVs are expected to occupy public roads and highways within several years, many stakeholders—drivers, passengers, pedestrians, cyclists, regulators, automakers, and insurers among them—have not achieved a full understanding of how SDVs should function in everyday traffic situations. Using logistic regression (n = 461), the author looks at how individuals' personality facets (HEXACO: honesty-humility; conscientiousness) and ethics positions (idealism; relativism) might relate to their directives for what SDVs should do/decide in the context of four established trolley problem vignettes. In all vignettes, any action/decision will result in zero-sum outcomes of survival and fatality for the parties involved (e.g., passenger, pedestrians). In essence, the results offer insights into how these underexplored human elements might help inform society's rules of the road and SDVs' moral algorithms in the future.

Suggested Citation

  • Smith, Brent, 2019. "Personality facets and ethics positions as directives for self-driving vehicles," Technology in Society, Elsevier, vol. 57(C), pages 115-124.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:teinso:v:57:y:2019:i:c:p:115-124
    DOI: 10.1016/j.techsoc.2018.12.006
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Peter Mudrack & E. Mason, 2013. "Dilemmas, Conspiracies, and Sophie’s Choice: Vignette Themes and Ethical Judgments," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 118(3), pages 639-653, December.
    2. repec:aph:ajpbhl:10.2105/ajph.2016.303628_6 is not listed on IDEAS
    3. Fleetwood, J., 2017. "Public health, ethics, and autonomous vehicles," American Journal of Public Health, American Public Health Association, vol. 107(4), pages 532-537.
    4. Peter Mudrack & E. Mason, 2013. "Ethical Judgments: What Do We Know, Where Do We Go?," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 115(3), pages 575-597, July.
    5. Natalie Gold & Andrew M. Colman & Briony D. Pulford, 2014. "Cultural differences in responses to real-life and hypothetical trolley problems," Judgment and Decision Making, Society for Judgment and Decision Making, vol. 9(1), pages 65-76, January.
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    Cited by:

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    2. Raza, Syed Arshad, 2021. "Managing ethical requirements elicitation of complex socio-technical systems with critical systems thinking: A case of course-timetabling project," Technology in Society, Elsevier, vol. 66(C).
    3. Huang, Youlin & Qian, Lixian & Song, Jinzhu, 2026. "When service process contradicts service outcome: Spillover effects of users’ perceptions in the case of robotaxi service encounters," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 206(C).
    4. Hamburger, Yair Amichai & Sela, Yaron & Kaufman, Sharon & Wellingstein, Tamar & Stein, Noy & Sivan, Joel, 2022. "Personality and the autonomous vehicle: Overcoming psychological barriers to the driverless car," Technology in Society, Elsevier, vol. 69(C).
    5. Poszler, Franziska & Geisslinger, Maximilian & Betz, Johannes & Lütge, Christoph, 2023. "Applying ethical theories to the decision-making of self-driving vehicles: A systematic review and integration of the literature," Technology in Society, Elsevier, vol. 75(C).
    6. Pereira, Vijay & Bamel, Umesh & Paul, Happy & Varma, Arup, 2022. "Personality and safety behavior: An analysis of worldwide research on road and traffic safety leading to organizational and policy implications," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 151(C), pages 185-196.

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