Psychological factors in consumer intentions toward smartwatches: A study on technology adoption and behavior

This research examines the psychological factors that contribute to consumer intentions toward smartwatches, with a particular focus on technology adoption and consumer behavior. It incorporates motivational and decision-making psychological theories to frame the area of research, highlighting important constructs such as health and fitness motivation, technological affinity, social influence, perceived value, and brand influence as predictors of purchase intention. Survey data are analysed using machine learning models, to identify the most significant psychological drivers influencing consumers against the purchase of wearables from a technological perspective. Among the machine learning models tested, the CatBoost classifier achieved the highest performance with an accuracy of 86 % and an AUC-ROC of 0.90, outperforming Random Forest, Gradient Boosting, and XGBoost. These results underscore the strong predictive ability of ensemble-based algorithms in identifying psychological and behavioural determinants of smartwatch purchase intention. The findings provide insights into how technological and psychological-social factors complement each other, shaping consumer behavior within the Psychology and Technology field. This research contributes to the understanding of technology adoption and underscores the pressing need for a holistic psychological perspective in the everyday world of wearables.