Psychological ownership and anonymity in robotaxi use: pathways to long-term engagement in smart tourism

While robotaxi addresses travelers’ sense of ownership gaps in ride-hailing services, tourism scholarship focuses on travelers’ pre-adoption intentions. Antecedents and outcomes of consumer psychological ownership toward robotaxis remain underexplored. This study combines text mining and a user survey to identify interpersonal anonymity as a novel antecedent that enhances psychological ownership by fulfilling the need for “having a place.” Psychological ownership and cognitive absorption jointly predict users’ long-term behavioral intentions. These findings advance research on human-computer interaction and mobility literature by illuminating how digitally mediated service experiences shape long-term behavioral intentions through identity-driven and immersive psychological mechanisms.