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Gender imbalances in the labor market continue to be an economic and social problem that could be reduced by artificial intelligence (AI), which is being promoted as a means for fairer and less biased hiring practices. To examine whether these supposed benefits of AI are perceived as such, we have investigated the preferences of individuals, particularly women, for an AI-based evaluation process in a competitive situation. The results of our experimental study (N = 152) show that individuals generally prefer a human evaluator over an AI evaluator—but only if the human evaluator is female. Whereas we demonstrate that women's beliefs in AI to reduce bias and perceived personal discrimination have a positive direct effect, we find no direct effect of the competitors' gender on women's preference for an AI evaluation. However, we find that the belief in AI moderates the other two relationships, which highlights the crucial role of people's general perception of AI tools in realizing AI's full potential and reduce anticipated biases. Our findings provide an initial indication that the use of AI technology in hiring could encourage women to apply for jobs in male-dominated fields and serve as a starting point for future research in this field.

Robo‐advisors have recently been gaining interest as a technology‐enabled means to make financial management easier. The aim of this study is to examine how people's self‐assessed financial experience, affective reactions, and the interplay with individual values influence their willingness to use a robo‐advisor. We argue that one's self‐assessed financial experience influences the willingness to use robo‐advisors as a result of different affective reactions (i.e., anxiety and joy) associated with its usage. We further posit that the mediating effect of anxiety varies with individual levels of a motivational factor—self‐enhancement—which has been found to regulate anxiety‐related feelings. Based on a large‐scale nationwide survey with an online sample of American adults, it was found that affective responses (i.e., anxiety and joy) explain (i.e., mediate) the effect of self‐assessed financial experience on the willingness to use robo‐advisor. Moreover, the mediating effect of anxiety was found to vary with levels of self‐enhancement motives. The findings suggest that willingness to use robo‐advisors may be increased with positive emotions (e.g., joy) expected from use, while decreased by anticipated negative emotions (e.g., anxiety), and that the relationship may be altered by inducing individuals' self‐enhancement motives (e.g., possibility of accumulating wealth).