The Relationship Between Attachment Styles, Technology Trust, and Obsession

Since its inception, information systems (IS) research has recognized that subconscious psychology influences technology use. Our study extends the fragmented literature regarding attachment styles and human-computer interaction (HCI), analyzing how early psychological attachment styles affect attitudes toward various technologies. We theorize that attachment styles formed in the early formative years of one’s life universally shape attitudes toward technology in adulthood by building on the premises that technologies are socio-technical systems, and that psychological schemas influence everyday interactions through the mechanism of transference. We examine how attachment styles are linked with trust and obsessive tendencies across smartphones, social media, generative AI, video gaming, online dating, and driverless vehicles. Our analysis reveals that avoidant attachment is consistently associated with mistrust, while anxious attachment is consistently associated with obsessive technology use. These results highlight attachment styles as key predictors of trust and engagement with technology and contributes to IS, HCI, and attachment theory literature.