Emotional Foundations of Individual's Perception: The Case of Technology Radicalness

Due to the growing importance of enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems, universities and corporate training programs have included such systems into their curricula using novel tools, such as ERP simulation games. To improve our understanding of individuals’ learning patterns, in this study we extend prior cognition based models by incorporating emotions. Moreover, we highlight the role of perceived radicalness, which mediates the relationship between emotions and individual willingness to learn. Our research model draws from the appraisal tendency framework and includes four distinct classes of emotions: challenge, achievement, loss, and deterrence emotions. We conducted a lab experiment to test the model in an ERP simulation game context. The preliminary results indicate that perceived radicalness is an important mechanism via which classes of emotions impact students' learning behaviors. We also found that, in general, negative emotions had more effect on radicalness perceptions compared to positive emotions.