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The uncanny valley (UCV) model is an influential human-robot interaction theory that explains the relationship between the resemblance that robots have to humans and attitudes toward robots. Despite its extraordinary worth, this model remains untested in certain respects. One current limitation is that the model has only been examined in general or context-free situations. Given that humanoids function in the world beyond laboratories, investigating the UCV in specific and actual situations is critical. Additionally, few studies have examined the impact of affective responses presented in the UCV to other appraisals of humanoids. To address these issues, this study explored affective and cognitive responses to humanoids in specific service situations. In particular, we examined the effect of affective responses on trust, which is regarded as a critical cognitive factor influencing technology adoption, in two service contexts: hotel reception (low expertise) and tutoring (high expertise). By providing a richer understanding of human both affective and cognitive reactions to humanoids, our findings expand the UCV theory and ultimately contribute to research regarding user adoption of service robots.

Smart speakers, which provide continuous real-time information and convenient services, increasingly permeate into users’ homes. On the other hand, the environments of the smart speaker also cause ...

As the complexity of managing online personal information is increasing and data breach incidents frequently occur, online users feel a loss of control over their privacy. Such a situation leads to their cynical attitudes towards privacy protection, called privacy cynicism. This study aims to examine the role of privacy cynicism in online users’ privacy behaviors. Data were gathered from a survey that 281 people participated in and were analyzed with covariance-based structural equation modeling. The findings of this study reveal that privacy cynicism has not only a direct influence on disclosure intention but also moderates an effect of privacy concerns on the intention. The analytical results also indicate that there is a nonlinear effect of privacy cynicism on the outcome variable. This study developed the concept of privacy cynicism—a phenomenon that significantly affects online privacy behavior but has been rarely examined. The study is an initial research into the nature and implications of privacy cynicism and furthermore clarified its role by the nonlinear relationship between privacy cynicism and the willingness to disclose personal information.

We examined the effects of socio-demographics and personality traits on online privacy concern. We investigated this relationship in general and across different Internet functions. Using a large, diverse, population-representative sample (N = 5,242), we found that females, educated, and wealthier individuals tend to be concerned with online privacy to a greater extent. Among personality traits, agreeableness and conscientiousness were generally associated with an increased probability of being concerned with online privacy. These results imply that socio- demographics and personality traits provide explanatory insights into online privacy concern.

Although information privacy has been extensively investigated in the information systems discipline, research heavily focuses on cognitive frameworks and underestimates the influence of affect on users’ privacy behaviors. Psychological literature demonstrates that affect plays a significant role in individuals’ decisions in risky situations. This study aims to explore associations between cognitive factors, affective responses, and coping behaviors in the context of privacy threats. For this purpose, we conducted a laddering interview with 56 users of location-based services. Elements elicited by an emerging coding procedure were mapped by their causal relations as described in interviews. The results revealed idiosyncratic associations among privacy concerns, affects, and coping behaviors, which implies that privacy concerns can result in different coping behaviors according to the affects following the concern. Thus, the result suggests that cognition-affect appraisals can offer a reliable framework for explaining users’ privacy behaviors. This study proposes a new direction for the cognition-affect perspective in information privacy research by providing an alternative approach that reflects both cognition and affects to explain coping behaviors.

The increasing difficulty in managing one's online personal data leads to individuals feeling a loss of control. Additionally, repeated consumer data breaches have given people a sense of futility, ultimately making them weary of having to think about online privacy. This phenomenon is called “privacy fatigue.” Although privacy fatigue is prevalent and has been discussed by scholars, there is little empirical research on the phenomenon. This study aimed not only to conceptualize privacy fatigue but also to examine its role in online privacy behavior. Based on literature on burnout, we developed measurement items for privacy fatigue, which has two key dimensions —emotional exhaustion and cynicism. Data analyzed from a survey of 324 Internet users showed that privacy fatigue has a stronger impact on privacy behavior than privacy concerns do, although the latter is widely regarded as the dominant factor in explaining online privacy behavior.

While mobile social network sites (SNSs) function as a platform for social and self-communication that leads to sense of others and oneself, users may feel irritation derived from social interaction and technical frustration in using mobile SNSs. Because of the ubiquitous nature of mobile devices, sense of presence and irritation are more influential to users' satisfaction of mobile SNSs. This study investigates the influence of a sense of presence and irritation on users' satisfaction with mobile SNSs. Additionally, the study examines a moderating effect of mobile SNS use intensity between sense of presence (social and self-presence) and irritation (social and technological irritation) and their outcomes. The study contributes to knowledge on social media users, particularly in the mobile context, by proposing and demonstrating a presence-irritation model

Clicking the Like is an idiosyncratic and essential activity in Facebook.Users pursuit diverse goals in Facebook.Overall goals in Facebook have significant relations with psychological well-being.Relationships between the goals for SNS use and the dimensions of psychological well-being.Enjoyment in Facebook has a negative relation with psychological well-being. There is scant research on the broader outcomes of IT in users life contexts beyond adoption. This study uses a goal hierarchy approach to deepen our understanding of the relationship between the use of Facebook and psychological well-being (PWB) in young adults. The study applies a mixed-method design that combines means-end analysis and regression analysis to examine data collected from laddering interviews with 161 Facebook users. The means-end chain analysis provided knowledge of the hierarchical goal structure in Facebook (i.e., activitiesmediated goalsultimate goals). Regression analysis was used to identify the relationships between the ultimate goals of Facebook use (e.g., psychological stability, belongingness) and the dimensions of PWB (e.g., self-acceptance, autonomy). The findings explain the significant association of Facebook use with well-being and the dual outcomes of enjoyment (positive in SNS; negative in users lives). Prior research focused on relationships among abstract factors, but this study delivers a more specific and nuanced explanation of user behavior on SNSs by providing knowledge of how specific Facebook activities relate to goals and PWB.

With this study, we explored an emerging type of surveillance, namely, peer-to-peer surveillance, in which individuals with lateral surveillance devices (e.g., smart glasses, wearable cameras) can stealthily observe others. Specifically, we investigated how, compared with centralized surveillance, peer-to-peer surveillance affects group satisfaction with group work and the processes of cognitive and affective appraisals. We developed our research model in the framework of stimulus-organism-response. In our experiment, we randomly assigned 60 three-member groups to one of three conditions (no monitoring, centralized monitoring, peer-to-peer surveillance) and conducted a group task. The results revealed that peer-to-peer surveillance influenced satisfaction with group work through mediators such as perceived surveillance (cognition) and stress (affect). By elucidating the significant roles of cognition and affect in the emerging pervasive surveillance, we contribute to understanding human responses to the risks caused by novel information and communication technologies.

Users’ desire to view additional content while watching TV has increased significantly in recent years. This study investigates the optimal way to show supplementary content and evaluates the types of additional information that should be provided. We conduct two 2 (single screen vs. second screen) × 2 (providing additional content with congruent goals vs. incongruent goals) between-subjects design experiments, one with news information (utilitarian content) and the other with soft drama programming (hedonic content). The results showed that viewing supplemental content with related information on a different screen strengthens user perceptions of both news and drama. However, the interaction effect of second-screen viewing and the goals of additional content differed across the main types of TV content. The results of this study are relevant to both scholars and practitioners who seek ways to enhance the effectiveness of second-screen usage.

Mixed methods: qualitative study with interview and quantitative study with survey.Social exchange theory with benefit-cost assessment.Four benefit factors and one cost factor in the qualitative study.Research model testing with six decision factors in the quantitative study.Three main antecedents of posting benevolent comments online in terms of self-interest, altruism, and rationality. Cyberbullying by way of malicious online comments has been identified as a critical social issue. As a way to combat cyberbullying, it is important to promote the posting of benevolent comments, especially in response to malicious comments. In this study, we adopted a mixed methods approach in using social exchange theory to explore what motivates people to post benevolent comments online. We first adopted a qualitative study to explore the decision factors involved. These were then used as the basis for development of a theoretical research model to undertake a quantitative study. The results explain how people decide to post benevolent comments online. The study makes a strong theoretical contribution in demonstrating the decision factors underlying the posting of benevolent comments. It also has practical implications by providing guidance on how to combat cyberbullying through promoting the posting of benevolent online comments.

Recently, mass media and researchers have begun to be concerned about excessive dependence on smartphones. Their interest, however, has largely focused on description of the phenomenon (i.e. severity of the addiction, current status of the addiction) or the development of measurement scales to assess the addiction. In this study, we ask a fundamental question about smartphone addiction: what users’ common sense of dependence on smartphones is. More specifically, employing a core–periphery analysis of social representations, this article explores how the younger generation has a different understanding of this addiction from the older generation. Findings of the study can provide a rich knowledge about users’ perceptions of and attitude toward smartphone addiction.

Despite an exponentially increasing number of registered users, social virtual worlds have the problem of a high user attrition rate. It is thus meaningful to explore which factors influence users' continued use of social virtual worlds. The current study attempts to find these factors in unique characteristics (e.g., 3-dimentional environment, avatar interaction, and user empowerment) in the world, which can be sources for retaining users. Specifically, the study employs the sense of presence and perceived autonomy. 194 users of Second Life, which is the largest social virtual world, participated in the survey. The findings support the argument that the sense of presence and autonomy are influential in users' continued use of social virtual worlds.

The purpose of this study is twofold: first, to investigate user goals in social virtual worlds; second, to introduce a methodological alternative (i.e., a means-end chain approach) for analyzing user goals in cyberspaces. The data were acquired from a web survey, and were analyzed by means-end chain analysis (MECA), which produces users' goal structure in reference to a hierarchical system of interrelated goals (Olson & Reynolds, 1983). The results show that people come to social virtual worlds to satisfy their social and hedonic needs, and to escape from real world constraints, as do virtual community members and virtual gamers; they also pursue unique activities, such as creating virtual objects and selling them. On the other hand, by clarifying relations among users' goals, MECA provides a richer explanation for user goals than prior research which only offers separate user goals for cyberspace users without explanation of relationship among goals.

This research addresses the question of the design of advanced interfaces (e.g., 3D) to encourage participation in virtual communities and support social interaction. While prior studies have examined diverse factors to affect members' intention to participate in virtual communities, they have relatively underestimated a technological influence on members' intention to participate. Considering current virtual communities have been armed with advanced interfaces, it is vital to investigate a technological influence on members' behavioral intention. This paper investigates members' intention to participate in virtual communities by testing a research model consisting of two types of presence (telepresence and social presence) and their antecedents. The research model was empirically tested with data from 207 members of Second Life which is an emerging virtual community equipped with an advanced 3D interface. The results showed our model can be a good framework in understanding members' intention to participate in virtual communities.