Abstract

Affective technology has received increasing attention since Rosalind Picard’s ground-breaking book on “affective computing” in 1997. Although affective technology shows distinct characteristics in con-trast to other types of technology and has great potential to have a substantial impact on the field of Information Systems (IS), there is little insight into the specific conditions of its acceptance. Due to the specific characteristics of affective technology, it can be assumed that trust is an essential construct of the acceptance of affective technology. This study explores the trust-based acceptance of affective tech-nology by using a grounded theory approach. Based on a literature review on trust-based acceptance theories in the field of IS, we developed a semi-structured interview guideline and interviewed 43 per-sons about the idea of trust in affective technology. Emerged from our empirical findings, we introduce a construct new to the field of technology acceptance which we call “emotional self-reflexivity”. The construct refers to the capability to reflect and to be aware of one’s own emotions. We propose that emotional self-reflexivity supports the process of understanding the behavior of affective technology which then leads to trust-based acceptance towards the system. From this chain of effects, we derive implications for theory and design.

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