Leiden University Student Repository

Smulders, Romano (2023)

Whose Big Brother is watching? The influence of horizontal and vertical data breaches on the willingness to disclose identifying information online

Master thesis | Psychology (MSc)

Privacy is a hotly debated topic. Many claim that their privacy is of great importance to them, yet at the same time people are prone to self-disclose a lot of information online. This privacy paradox is at the centre of a lot of scholarly debate. By expanding on the horizontal/vertical privacy model by Quinn and Epstein (2018, July), this thesis aims to better understand the privacy paradox. Horizontal privacy pertains to sharing information in the peer domain. Vertical privacy pertains to sharing information in the government/corporation domain. Using a fictious social networking site, self-report measures were taken that predict behaviour. 165 (71 male; 94 female) Participants were led to believe that their data was breached and leaked either in the horizontal or vertical domain or not at all. It was hypothesized that data breaches, and the horizontal data breach in particular, would create negative experiences that would lead to discontinuing the fictitious SNS. The results of...Show morePrivacy is a hotly debated topic. Many claim that their privacy is of great importance to them, yet at the same time people are prone to self-disclose a lot of information online. This privacy paradox is at the centre of a lot of scholarly debate. By expanding on the horizontal/vertical privacy model by Quinn and Epstein (2018, July), this thesis aims to better understand the privacy paradox. Horizontal privacy pertains to sharing information in the peer domain. Vertical privacy pertains to sharing information in the government/corporation domain. Using a fictious social networking site, self-report measures were taken that predict behaviour. 165 (71 male; 94 female) Participants were led to believe that their data was breached and leaked either in the horizontal or vertical domain or not at all. It was hypothesized that data breaches, and the horizontal data breach in particular, would create negative experiences that would lead to discontinuing the fictitious SNS. The results of this thesis remain inconclusive. No significant differences between the horizontal, vertical data breaches and control condition were found. Although the data do not support the research hypotheses, the present study does give some insights in how to improve future research. What is more, it makes a case for the horizontal/vertical privacy model, since it nevertheless can be of use to both scholars and society.Show less

horizontal, vertical, privacy, paradox, data

Author

Smulders, Romano

Faculty

Faculty of Social & Behavioural Sciences

Specialisation

Social and Organisational Psychology

Supervisors

Steinel, W.

ECTS Credits

20

Language

en