A theoretical approximation to the psychological aspects related to the consumer´s adoption and use of a website recommendation system

This paper presents and discusses a conceptual model for understanding the consumer´s adoption, use and main psychological outcomes related to a particular website recommendation system, with the emphasis on the psychological perspective of the research problem. We base our work on, adapt and integrate classical theories of consumer behavior with specific theories developed within the framework of computer-mediated environments. The proposed model, along with the relations analyzed among the variables considered (20 propositions are set), should be of help to recommendation systems designers and Web site managers to enable them to work with systems that are more responsive to the psychological processes experienced by consumers when interacting with them.