Gadget Loving: A Test of an Integrative Model

Following the seminal work of Bruner and Kumar (2007) on gadget loving, this paper views gadget loving as the attachment individuals have towards advanced electronic items and how such an attachment relates to actual use (i.e., actual gadgets ownership). It extends existing research in two important ways. First, it provides a re-test of the reliability and validity of the gadget-loving scale in two new countries (Israel and Sweden), thus adding to the generalizability of the scale across cultures. Second, it develops and tests an integrative model which includes gadget loving as a central construct as well as several antecedents and consequences proposed as important topics for future research in the extant literature. The results show that inherent novelty seeking, technological innovativeness, and technical curiosity predict the gadget-loving trait, which in turn affects technological opinion leadership and gadget ownership. These findings have theoretical and practical implications.