Super-intelligence or Superstition? Exploring Psychological Factors Influencing Belief in AI Predictions about Personal Behavior

TL;DR

This study explores psychological factors influencing belief in AI predictions about personal behavior, revealing parallels with superstition and highlighting factors that increase perceived trust and skepticism in AI systems.

Contribution

It identifies key psychological and attitudinal factors affecting belief in AI predictions, demonstrating the 'rational superstition' phenomenon in human-AI interactions.

Findings

Belief in AI predictions correlates with astrology and personality-based predictions.

Paranormal beliefs and positive AI attitudes increase perceived validity and usefulness.

Cognitive style has no significant impact on belief in AI predictions.

Abstract

Could belief in AI predictions be just another form of superstition? This study investigates psychological factors that influence belief in AI predictions about personal behavior, comparing it to belief in astrology- and personality-based predictions. Through an experiment with 238 participants, we examined how cognitive style, paranormal beliefs, AI attitudes, personality traits, and other factors affect perceived validity, reliability, usefulness, and personalization of predictions from different sources. Our findings reveal that belief in AI predictions is positively correlated with belief in predictions based on astrology and personality psychology. Notably, paranormal beliefs and positive attitudes about AI significantly increased perceived validity, reliability, usefulness, and personalization of AI predictions. Conscientiousness was negatively correlated with belief in predictions across all sources, and interest in the prediction topic increased believability across predictions. Surprisingly, we found no evidence that cognitive style has an impact on belief in fictitious AI-generated predictions. These results highlight the "rational superstition" phenomenon in AI, where belief is driven more by mental heuristics and intuition than critical evaluation. This research advances our understanding of the psychology of human-AI interaction, offering insights into designing and promoting AI systems that foster appropriate trust and skepticism, critical for responsible integration in an increasingly AI-driven world.