The Attitude Construct in IT Adoption Research – A Scientometric Analysis

Understanding user’s attitudes represents one of the major objectives in IS adoption research. However, in some IS adoption models, as the most famous representative the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM), the relationship between user’s attitude and behavioral intention was found to be insignificant and was therefore excluded from later modifications of the respective models (e.g. TAM II and the unified theory of acceptance and use of technology). Some authors in IS adoption literature indicate that there are operational and conceptual misconceptions of the attitude construct in IS adoption literature. To provide more information for this discussion within this paper, the descriptive results of a scientometric survey of fourteen IS top journals spanning 20 years and 147 articles, are presented with regards to the socio psychological grounding of attitude research. Several situational factors of adoption situations in literature e.g. adoption context or voluntariness of usage were captured in the data in order to analyze the occurrence of each characteristic in IS adoption models with reference to their influence on the attitude construct

What Determines User Attitudes in IS Research? A Meta-analytic Structural Equation Modeling Approach

While research in general has extensively studied the coherence between attitude and behavior, Information Systems (IS) research has paid little attention to the antecedents of attitude. Using the elaboration likelihood model (ELM) as theoretical basis, we focus on the factors that determine attitudes in IS research. We apply a meta-analytic structural equation model based on major IS-adoption models that focuses on classifying the antecedents of attitude in the studies of our meta-analysis according to the central and peripheral route of information processing proposed by the ELM. The results indicate that affect and cognition as representatives for the central route are less important as attitudinal antecedents in the IS context compared to external factors that represent the peripheral route of information processing

Reflecting Attitude In It Adoption Research – Theoretical Considerations And Scientometric Evaluations

Users’ attitudes depict one of the main determinants, why individuals use information systems. However, in the basic theoretical understanding of social psychology research attitude could be shaped in two different ways; attitude formation and attitude change. Within this paper, both attitude research streams are theoretically reflected as well as observed in IT adoption literature using data of a scientometric analysis of the following 14 top journals of the IS field according to several journal rankings. The results represent a domination of attitude formation and show that 90% of the articles applied this form. Additionally, it could be revealed that the Theories of Reasoned Action and Planned Behavior are the most applied underlyings for attitude formation. Furthermore, two interesting aspects could be outlined. Concerning attitude change, besides being by definition a construct to describe dynamic structures with a process-based measurement, 44% of the articles found used underlying theories for static structures with a moment-based measurement

Emotions in Information Systems Research – A Five Component View

Many scientific viewpoints and research streams occurred over the last decades with the objective to create structure and common understanding on a more abstract level how emotions affect human behavior (e.g. constructivist or appraisal theories). As a consequence, Information Systems (IS) researchers have adopted diverse mixed up theoretical foundations about emotions. This brings the need for a more structured way to study emotions in the IS field. Thus, within this research a five component view on emotions is developed, based on appraisal theories of emotions and the 3-emotions´ nomological network by Gregor et al. (2014). The new view provides better guidance for IS researchers studying the occurrence or effect of human emotions in terms of a better understanding of the emotion concept and an easier transfer of theoretical considerations from psychology to the IS field, especially the adaptation of emotional constructs and their subjective and objective measurement

Peer Influence, Family Dysfunction or Conditioning? – An Empirical Analysis of Facebook Addiction Predispositions

The high increase of usage rates of Social Networking Sites (SNS) such as Facebook are a worldwide phenomenon as are people spending hours in Facebook especially among young adolescents. However, beside their useful and enjoyable features, SNS like Facebook have also proven to have undesired outcomes in terms of technostress, social overload, or even addiction. Addiction as a variable in adoption models has been introduced into the IS community by Turel and Serenko (2011) who operationalized online-auction addiction and assessed its impact on adoption determinants as perceived usefulness. By means of an empirical study of 125 young adults, the present research shifts the focus to the causes of addiction using the example of Facebook. We thereby focus on three groups of addiction predispositions (Family dysfunction, peer influence and behavioral conditioning) and empirically investigate their impact on Facebook addiction

What Faces Can(not) Tell – A Multi-Channel Analysis of Emotional Responses to Computer-Transferred Stimuli

In Information Systems (IS) research, emotions are predominantly measured using self-reports of survey participants (e.g. in IS adoption) or facial expressions (e.g. in Human-Computer Interaction). In order to combine both measurement foci, we assess and compare the impact of facial emotional reactions to computer-induced stimuli on self-reported perceptive evaluations towards the respective stimulus and system by using a multi-method experimental approach with multi-channel analysis. We captured implicit emotional expressions of happiness of 176 participants using eye-tracker and webcam technology as implicit emotion measures together with a post-experimental questionnaire containing items for the explicit emotion of pleasure, social presence, and arousal. Results analyzed using the FACS procedure (Ekman and Friesen 1978) and test for mean inequality indicate that facially transmitted happiness in response to hedonic design elements in online job ads leads to an increase in self-report measures for pleasure, but not unambiguously for social presence and arousal. Furthermore, we find support for the effect of implicit emotion expression of happiness on the explicit self-report measures of pleasure and arousal being higher for the measures of pleasure. We contribute to IS research on human behavior by complementing self-reported measures of emotion with a physical emotional measure in response to system’s feature, and by linking these measured emotional physical responses to individual behavior. In addition, by comparing both implicit (physical) and explicit (overt self-reported perceptions) measures of emotional responses we provide a more detailed picture on benefits and limitations of both measures and about their internal relationship

Does Your Smile Mean That You’re Happy? – a Multi-Channel Analysis of Emotional Reactions

In Information Systems (IS) research, emotions are primarily measured using facial expressions of participants or self-reported survey results. To unite both measurement foci, we analyze the impact of facial emotional reactions to computer-induced stimuli on self-reported evaluations towards the respective stimulus by using a multi-method experimental approach with multi-channel analysis. We collected emotional expressions of happiness of 176 participants using eye-tracker and webcam technology together with a post-experimental survey. We contribute to IS research by supplementing self-reported measures of emotion with a physical emotional measure in response to a system’s feature, and by relating these measured emotional physical responses to individual behavior

Myelination in the absence of UDP-galactose:ceramide galactosyl-transferase and fatty acid 2 -hydroxylase

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The sphingolipids galactosylceramide (GalCer) and sulfatide are major myelin components and are thought to play important roles in myelin function. The importance of GalCer and sulfatide has been validated using UDP-galactose:ceramide galactosyltransferase-deficient (<it>Cgt</it>^-/-) mice, which are impaired in myelin maintenance. These mice, however, are still able to form compact myelin. Loss of GalCer and sulfatide in these mice is accompanied by up-regulation of 2-hydroxylated fatty acid containing (HFA)-glucosylceramide in myelin. This was interpreted as a partial compensation of the loss of HFA-GalCer, which may prevent a more severe myelin phenotype. In order to test this hypothesis, we have generated <it>Cgt</it>^-/-mice with an additional deletion of the fatty acid 2-hydroxylase (<it>Fa2h</it>) gene.</p> <p>Results</p> <p><it>Fa2h</it>^-/-/Cgt^-/-double-deficient mice lack sulfatide, GalCer, and in addition HFA-GlcCer and sphingomyelin. Interestingly, compared to <it>Cgt</it>^-/-mice the amount of GlcCer in CNS myelin was strongly reduced in <it>Fa2h</it>^-/-/<it>Cgt</it>^-/-mice by more than 80%. This was accompanied by a significant increase in sphingomyelin, which was the predominant sphingolipid in <it>Fa2h</it>^-/-/<it>Cgt</it>^-/-mice. Despite these significant changes in myelin sphingolipids, compact myelin was formed in <it>Fa2h</it>^-/-/<it>Cgt</it>^-/-mice, and g-ratios of myelinated axons in the spinal cord of 4-week-old <it>Fa2h</it>^-/-/<it>Cgt</it>^-/-mice did not differ significantly from that of <it>Cgt</it>^-/-mice, and there was no obvious phenotypic difference between <it>Fa2h</it>^-/-/<it>Cgt</it>^-/-and <it>Cgt</it>^-/-mice</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>These data show that compact myelin can be formed with non-hydroxylated sphingomyelin as the predominant sphingolipid and suggest that the presence of HFA-GlcCer and HFA-sphingomyelin in <it>Cgt</it>^-/-mice does not functionally compensate the loss of HFA-GalCer.</p