The Spill-Over Effect of the Emotional Reaction to the Use of Internet on the Intention to Use Internet of Things (IoT) Services: An Abstract

The study incorporates psychological and emotional factors of user experiences with the Internet to test their potential spillover effect on IoT acceptance. Behavioral spillover may be explained by two psychological mechanisms. Firstly, behaviors manifested in one domain may be generalized into knowledge and habits that, in turn, influence behaviors in other domains. Secondly, when situational cues in two domains are highly similar, spillover can be direct without intervening processes. The positive emotions experienced in an originating domain, i.e., the Internet in this study, may increase the users’ self-efficacy and motivation in the receiving domain, i.e., IoT. Users’ emotions can be classified into four types, namely, achievement, challenge, loss, and deterrence emotions. Well-being (defined as the degree of users’ needs fulfilment and quality of life enhancement by using the technological platforms) is another potential psychological factor that influences the user adaptation to the transition. Following the above, this study tests the role of emotions and well-being in IoT usage. An online questionnaire was administered in the United States to 615 respondents and Structural Equation Modelling was employed for the analysis of the data. The results suggest that only challenge emotions have is a statistically significant influence on IoT usage behavioral intention. Achievement and challenge emotions are aroused when the users can benefit from the Internet, achievement emotions are more likely to occur when the users feel a lack of control over the Internet. Achievement emotions do not significantly enhance the intention of using the IoT. Perceived enjoyment is influential at the post-adoption stage. Challenge emotions also showed a significant positive effect on the users’ intention of IoT usage. As the users experience challenge emotions when using the Internet, they are more likely to try the IoT and more capable of enhancing their efficiency and effectiveness by using the IoT. Loss and deterrence emotions are evoked when users feel unsatisfied with the performance of using the Internet. The effect of the perceived value of the Internet on the intention of using the IoT suggests that the overall assessment of the prior IS/IT significantly influences the transition. The perceived value is also confirmed as an expected outcome of IoT usage. Perceived well-being was confirmed to be both an antecedent and an outcome of IoT usage.