Self-identity as a construct:A comparative study

Self-identity is a private assessment of one’s beliefs and values. The self is an active agent in the decision process that drives people to act in accordance with the behavior that they see appropriate for themselves. According to Triandis, one’s self-definition motivates behavior that is consistent with that definition. Self-identity has been shown to influence the acceptance and use of technology. Prior research has shown that self-identity includes the factors of innovativeness, tech savviness, and opinion leadership. The aim of the research is to test the self-identity construct consisting of these three elements. The research sample consists of 356 Slovak and 246 U.S. university students. The main finding is that correlations between the three elements of self-identity are approximately by 0.2 lower in the Slovak sample, this is a statistically significant difference. This directly influences Cronbach's alphas; it is 0.835 in the U.S. sample, while only 0.670 in the Slovak sample. The implication is that although the construct has been found to have a fairly high internal consistency in the research conducted in the U.S., it may not be so suitable for the research in Slovakia