Affective Quality and Cognitive Absorption: Extending Technology Acceptance Research

Agarwal and Karahanna (2000) suggested that holistic user experiences with IT contribute to users’ evaluation of and reaction to using the technology. They proposed and empirically tested a construct named cognitive absorption that has preceding effects on important user technology acceptance constructs. We propose that an important antecedent of cognitive absorption is perceived affective quality (PAQ) of the target IT. Such perception is a user’s impression on the IT itself prior to any other cognitive appraisal and evaluation on the consequences or potential interactions with the IT. Rooted in psychological work on affect and cognition, we develop a theoretical model that depicts the causal relationships among PAQ, cognitive absorption, cognitive beliefs, and IT use intention. A field study was conducted to validate this model. Our results indicate that PAQ is a strong antecedent to cognitive absorption, explaining 39% variances in it, and has direct impacts on cognitive beliefs.