Two Worlds of Trust for Potential E-Commerce Users: Humans as Cognitive Misers

Ben Q. Liu () and Dale L. Goodhue ()
Additional contact information
Ben Q. Liu: Department of Information Systems, College of Business, City University of Hong Kong, Kowloon, Hong Kong SAR
Dale L. Goodhue: MIS Department, Terry College of Business, University of Georgia, Athens, Georgia 30606

Information Systems Research, 2012, vol. 23, issue 4, 1246-1262

Abstract: In this paper we consider the impact of trust on a new visitor's intention to revisit a website, but instead of using the typical expectancy-value theories as our conceptual basis, we look at the issue from the perspective of cognitive complexity and “humans as cognitive misers.” Starting with the suggestion that it is cognitively taxing to distrust, we propose that in order to conserve on cognitive resources, once a new visitor has convinced him or herself that a website is “trustworthy enough,” that user will drop trustworthiness from their concerns and only consider other characteristics of the website (e.g., task-technology fit, aesthetic appeal, etc.) in determining their revisit intention. This leads to what we call a “trust tipping point” and two different worlds of trust. Above the tipping point revisit intention is constructed in one way, and below the trust tipping point it is constructed in a quite different way. This perspective results in very different recommendations for website designers as to the likely payoff from improving task-technology fit, aesthetic appeal, or trustworthiness, depending upon where their existing website stands relative to the trust tipping point. To test our hypotheses we used data from 314 student website users, and expanded a technique called piecewise regression (Neter et al. Applied Linear Statistical Models , 4th ed.) to allow us to analyze data as two different linear surfaces, joined at the tipping point. We found good support for our assertions that users operate differently above and below a trust tipping point.

Keywords: accessibility-diagnosticity; bounded rationality; humans as cognitive misers; piecewise regression; task-technology fit; trust; web aesthetics (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2012
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (11)

Downloads: (external link)
http://dx.doi.org/10.1287/isre.1120.0424 (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:inm:orisre:v:23:y:2012:i:4:p:1246-1262

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Information Systems Research from INFORMS Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Asher ().