늙지 않는 노인들, 뒷말 없는 동반자: 액티브 시니어의 외로움 완화용 생성형 AI 부정 정서 기대에 대한 한국문화적 자아기제기반 정체성 보전 관점의 탐색적 혼합방법 접근

초록

As it has been reported that older adults may reject new technologies to preserve their self-identity, the limits of the prevailing competence-deficit framing of technology nonacceptance have become apparent. However, research examining this rejection from an identity-preservation perspective grounded in Korean cultural relational-self mechanisms remains scarce. This study therefore aimed to explore how Korean culturally rooted relational-self mechanisms relate to affective rejection of generative AI chatbots for loneliness alleviation among active seniors with relatively adequate digital proficiency through basic psychological need satisfaction and loneliness pathways. Because performance expectancy in existing technology acceptance models skews toward positive outcomes, rendering it ill-suited to capturing rejection motives in this context, this study reconceptualized it as negative affect expectancy toward generative AI chatbot use for loneliness alleviation and adopted it as the outcome variable. A literature review conducted from an identity-preservation perspective grounded in stereotype embodiment theory identified chemyon (face-saving), a defensive disposition rooted in the relational-self structure, and nunchi (contextual social attunement, comprising grasp and adjust sub-dimensions), an adaptive disposition rooted in the same structure, as culturally specific antecedents of basic psychological need satisfaction, and conceptually derived a sequential mediation structure in which these antecedents reach negative affect expectancy through need satisfaction and loneliness. A sequential explanatory mixed-methods design was accordingly employed, comprising a survey (N = 408) and semi-structured interviews (N = 20) with active seniors aged 65 and older in the Seoul metropolitan area. Sequential mediation analysis using structural equation modeling revealed that chemyon was negatively associated with all three need satisfactions; autonomy and relatedness satisfaction mediated its link to negative affect expectancy through loneliness, supporting the identity-preservation pathway, whereas the competence-satisfaction pathways—both via loneliness and directly to negative affect expectancy—were nonsignificant. For nunchi-grasp, the total indirect effect was nonsignificant, although individual indirect effects via autonomy and relatedness satisfaction reached significance. For nunchi-adjust, the total indirect effect was likewise nonsignificant, with only the relatedness-satisfaction pathway reaching significance individually. Reflexive thematic analysis yielded three themes—loneliness amid the crowd, in-group othering that separates the self from "dependent elders," and identity-based rejection of formulaic AI consolation—that qualitatively reinforced the cultural mechanisms underlying the quantitative model. These findings reveal the limits of the competence-deficit frame while confirming the utility of integrating Korean cultural antecedents into the self-determination theory need satisfaction model and analyzing nunchi sub-dimensions separately. Finally, non-ageist AI design directions were proposed as practical implications.

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