Do Integral Emotions Affect Trust? The Mediating Effect of Emotions on Trust in the Context of Human-Agent Interaction

Prior efforts have noted the effect of reliability, risk, and degree of anthropomorphism on trust in the context of human-agent interaction. However, the effects of these factors on resulting emotions while interacting with autonomous agents and their influence on trust are not clear. Towards that, we designed a 2 (partner: automation/human) × 2 (risk: low/high) × 2 (reliability: low/high) between-group study to identify relevant discrete emotions and their (emotions’) influences on users’ trustworthiness perceptions (ability, integrity, and benevolence). The results identified four emotion factors (positive emotions, hostility, anxiety, and loneliness) related to human-agent interaction. Although the reliability condition affected all four emotion factors, the mediating effects of the emotion factors on reliability and trustworthiness perceptions relationships differed for the varying emotion factors. The implications of our findings for trust calibration in the context of designing interactive systems are discussed in the paper.