Invisible Influence and the Autonomy-Recognition Gap in AI Paternalism and Psychological Reactance
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Abstract
This conceptual study examined how AI-mediated paternalistic influence could shape digital choice without being recognized by users as a threat to autonomy. The analysis used integrative literature synthesis and conceptual theory building across psychological reactance, autonomy, technology paternalism, digital nudging, and human-AI interaction. Published peer-reviewed studies were treated as secondary scholarly evidence rather than as an exhaustive dataset. The analysis distinguished system-level autonomy-relevant features from user recognition and perceived freedom threat. It developed the Autonomy-Recognition Gap as the discrepancy between identifiable features of an AI-mediated choice arrangement and the extent to which users recognized how those features bore on their freedom to choose. The synthesis showed that opacity and low recognition were related but conceptually distinct, while low reactance could not by itself demonstrate that autonomy had been preserved. Psychological legibility was positioned as a recognition condition, and reactance deficit was interpreted as one possible downstream outcome of recognition failure. Five theoretical propositions were formulated to guide later empirical testing without making causal or population-level claims.
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