A social-individual theory of user emotion

There is an abundance of research that focuses on individual emotional responses to technology use. However, there is little account and conceptualization of the social context and its interplay at the individual level. The aim of this theory and review paper is to address this gap by developing a Social-Individual Theory of User Emotion (SITUE). By investigating these interplays, we produce implications to enhance user experience and technology use efficacy. Through this framework we discovered that reflexive monitoring is a central concept in enabling and constraining user emotion production – we reframe this as reflexive appraisal. We explore the implications of this and related concepts through formal pathway models.