Users' Motives Shape Trust in Personalized Applications: the Importance of be-goals for Perceived Trustworthiness and Risk

The achievement of instrumental goals (do-goals) in automated systems is essential in forming users’ trust. However, the use of personalized applications is additionally linked to non-instrumental goals (be-goals). Be-goals include the satisfaction of needs like stimulation, relatedness or competence that makes the use of personalized applications so popular. In an experimental study (N = 34) we investigated how different levels of be-goal achievement affect users’ trust in two applications, a social network and a cloud service. Results reveal that greater be-goal achievement is related to lower users’ trust, a lower perception of trustworthiness and higher risk. This finding suggests that users associate a higher vulnerability with online situations which are closely connected to the self. However, the be-goals competence and security appear to be positively influencing users’ trust. From these first findings we argue that for enhancing trust in personalized applications both do-goals and be-goals should