Perceived Loss of Autonomy and Personal Control in the Age of Autonomous Technologies: Scale Development and Validation

As a significant application of artificial intelligence (AI), autonomous technologies (ATs) free people from decision-making and task-completion but they take away the autonomy and control that used to belong to users. This research advances understanding of AT acceptance by conceptually distinguishing and empirically validating two related but previously conflated constructs: perceived loss of autonomy and perceived loss of personal control. We develop clear definitions and reliable measurement scales for both constructs following rigorous scale development procedures with multiple methods and samples. We then examine their effects across two AT contexts that differ in task orientation—autonomous driving (utility-oriented) and autonomous shopping (meaning-oriented)—using separate survey samples. Findings reveal that perceived loss of autonomy is salient when technologies take over meaning-oriented tasks (e.g., shopping), whereas perceived loss of personal control is more influential for utility-oriented tasks (e.g., driving). This research contributes to AT acceptance literature by distinguishing and refining the conceptualization of loss of autonomy and loss of personal control, providing validated scales, and offering nuanced insights into how the effects of these two constructs vary by task orientation.