COMPUTER-BASED STEREOTYPE THREATS AS A NEW THEORETICAL PERSPECTIVE ON IS AVOIDANCE BY ELDERLY PEOPLE
Abstract
Despite constituting one fifth of the population in Europe, elderly people (65+) are the least active group with respect to using the internet and computer-based services. Toward shedding light on rea-sons for this discrepancy, we adopt in this paper the theory of stereotype threat as a theoretical lens. Stereotype threat theory posits the perception of a social identity threat such as being old and cogni-tively slow, which in turn results in anxiety, low performance, and avoidance behavior when exposed to a stereotype-relevant situation. Psychological research has resulted in numerous studies that pro-vided evidence of perceived aging stereotypes and their implications on performance, anxiety, and avoidance. Within this research in progress, we transfer this knowledge to the phenomenon of infor-mation system (IS) avoidance by elderly people and propose a research model and multi-methodological experimental design in order to investigate the relationship between perceived com-puter-based stereotype threat by elderly users, computer anxiety, IS performance, and IS avoidance behavior.
Recommended Citation
Kroenung, Julia and Noeltner, Markus, "COMPUTER-BASED STEREOTYPE THREATS AS A NEW THEORETICAL PERSPECTIVE ON IS AVOIDANCE BY ELDERLY PEOPLE" (2016). Research-in-Progress Papers. 9.
https://aisel.aisnet.org/ecis2016_rip/9