Psychological Reactance and Information Systems Adoption

According to Brehm (1966), if a person’s freedom to behave as they choose is threatened in some way, then they will become motivationally aroused to either reestablish the lost freedom, or to ensure that there is no further loss. This hypothetical motivational state is referred to as psychological reactance. While resistance is defined as behavior against compliance, psychological reactance is a motive to behave to recover a lost freedom, and may result in behavior against compliance. It is argued that negative behaviors, which contribute to the poor record of information system implementation, likely contain some element of psychological reactance and that the latter may be brought about by threats directly or indirectly related to the implementation at hand. Therefore, an understanding of the interactions between system implementation, broader contextual influences, such as organizational climate and the formation of reactance, offer an opportunity to base interventions in strategies that avoid or minimize the motive to adopt negative behaviors, and therefore enhance the implementation of information systems in organizational settings.