What Happens when Users are not able to Perform Coping Mechanisms? An Investigation of the Habituation Process

In some situations individuals are unable to perform coping mechanisms against technostress because of low controllability and resources. Thereby, they are repeatedly exposed to technology-related stimuli named IT-stressors, which should result in several user responses such as emotional exhaustion, physiological arousal, and poor performance. However, in these situations individuals might habituate to the ITstressor such that the user responses are mitigated. We assume that the influence of the IT-stressor on emotional exhaustion, physiological arousal, and performance is moderated by this habituation effect. Therefore, we propose an experimental setting in which individuals are repeatedly exposed to a computer breakdown to which they might get used to over time. During the experiment, we draw on self-reporting and objective methods to capture user responses after each exposure to the IT-stressor, in order to analyze the change of the user responses across time. Thereby, we expect the results to contribute to technostress and coping literature.