The Role of Signaling Identity in the Adoption of Personal Technologies

We explore symbolic determinants of technology acceptance to complement more functional frameworks and better predict decisions to adopt information appliances. Previous research has investigated such variables as “need for uniqueness” and “status gains” to capture relevant aspects of technology acceptance. However, the more we move toward personal and ubiquitous technologies, the more we need to broaden and deepen our understanding of the symbolic aspects of adoption. This study reinterprets the symbolic dimension of adoption by broadening its scope to include the self-concept. Results support a prominent role for self-identity in predicting intentions to adopt mobile TVs. Self-identity is shown to complement the effects of “need for uniqueness” and “status gains” in this regard.