Risk-taking in automated tasks: The role of sense of agency

Abstract

Automation improves task performance, yet it also systematically alters how operators take risks. Which characteristics of automation drive this change, and through what psychological mechanism, remains unresolved: the sense of agency has often been implicated but never quantitatively tested as a mediator. By quantifying sense of agency through subjective ratings, this research explored the impact of automation level and reliability level on risk-taking. Experiment 1 showed that automation reduced risk-taking. Experiment 2 showed that higher automation level was associated with lower sense of agency and lower risk-taking, with sense of agency playing a complete mediating role (indirect effect = −0.440). Experiment 3 showed that higher automation reliability was associated with higher sense of agency and higher risk-taking, with sense of agency playing a partial mediating role (indirect effect = 0.553). These findings indicate that automation level and reliability shape risk-taking through distinct pathways to the sense of agency—the intention–action link and the action–effect link, respectively—and highlight the preservation of operators' sense of agency as a design consideration for safer automated systems.