How emotions influence trust in online transactions using new technology

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2014

Abstract

Online trust has recently become a critical issue, due to widely publicized information leaks, account hacking, and privacy breaches. This study investigates whether or not emotions have effects on trust in online transactions, particularly when a new technology is involved. We explored the effects of happiness and sadness on participants’ choice of a payment method for online transactions. Forty-four undergraduates participated in online transactions with a prototype webpage after either happiness or sadness induction, compared to a neutral group. Different emotion mechanisms would predict different effects of each emotion. Results showed that when the item cost was relatively low ($10), a higher percentage of participants in both emotion conditions selected a novel payment method than those in a neutral condition. With more expensive items ($50 and $100) the number of participants who chose the new option equally increased across all conditions because participants could benefit relatively a large amount of discount (10%) from the novel payment method. Various emotion mechanisms are discussed with our results.

Publisher's Statement

Copyright 2014 Human Factors and Ergonomics Society. Publisher's version of record: https://doi.org/10.1177/1541931214581319

Publication Title

Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society Annual Meeting

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