Exploring the impact of AI technostress on physicians' job insecurity and performance from an empirical...

This study expands Califf's technostress model, which explores the psychological stress caused by technology, by integrating "perceived self-esteem threat" as a key stressor driven by the growing influence of medical artificial intelligence (AI), examining its impact on physicians' job insecurity and performance. A survey of 400 physicians from three Taiwanese hospitals (92.4% response rate) revealed the nuanced effects of AI-related technostress. Structural equation modeling (SEM), a statistical method used to test relationships between variables, showed that complexity and technology overload significantly increase job insecurity, while AI reliability, unexpectedly, also heightens it. AI self-esteem threat emerged as the most influential source of technostress. Job insecurity negatively affects job satisfaction but unexpectedly boosts job performance, suggesting a motivational response to perceived threats. The expanded model explains 44.6% of the variance in psychological reactions to AI, underscoring the critical role of self-esteem threat in shaping physicians' well-being and performance.