Social acceptability and product attributes of smart apparel: their effects on consumers’ attitude and use intention

We aimed to investigate the influence of social acceptability along with functional, expressive, aesthetic, and tracking attributes on consumers’ attitude and intention of using smart apparel. An online survey was conducted with a nationwide convenience sample of 563 U.S. men and women whose age was 18 years old and over. Participants first watched a short video clip of introducing a smart apparel prototype and then completed the survey. SPSS 26 and Mplus 8.3 were used to run the data analysis. The results demonstrated the importance of considering social acceptability of smart apparel along with functional and expressive attributes to predict consumers’ attitude and intention of its use. Social acceptability along with expressive and tracking attributes were the most significant determinants for predicting consumers’ attitude and intention of using smart apparel. This study assists future researchers to gain better insights into social acceptability for predicting consumers’ expectations of wearable technology.