Abstract

Affect and reliance on affect in making decisions under risk (affect heuristic) are important and distinct concepts that have received virtually no attention in the study of IS/ecommerce risk assessment. Affect in response to a risky stimulus is automatic and precedes all judgments/decisions. When processing of information is difficult, due to ambiguity or stimulus novelty, people might substitute a readily available evaluation (affect) for deliberation. When affect results in a strong positive/negative feeling state, people report benefits and costs, which are congruent with affect - thus, there is a possibility that privacy calculus and similar trade-off models may be artifacts of ignoring affect, rather than genuine phenomena. Finally, the concept of affect directs attention to the affective evaluability of attributes of stimulus as a key step in measuring, understanding and communicating risk. We are in the process of developing a model of risk which incorporates affective considerations for IS/Ecommerce research.

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