S. Shyam Sundar
Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, USA
Online users' attitudes toward privacy are context-dependent. Studies show that contextual cues are quite influential in motivating users to disclose personal information. Increasingly, these cues are embedded in the interface, but the mechanisms of their effects (e.g., unprofessional design contributing to more disclosure) are not fully understood. We posit that each cue triggers a specific "cognitive heuristic" that provides a rationale for decision-making. Using a national survey (N = 786) that elicited participants' disclosure intentions in common online scenarios, we identify 12 distinct heuristics relevant to privacy, and demonstrate that they are systematically associated with information disclosure. Data show that those with a higher accessibility to a given heuristic are more likely to disclose information. Design implications for protection of online privacy and security are discussed.
https://doi.org/10.1145/3313831.3376854
The ACM CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (https://chi2020.acm.org/)