Browsing by Subject "Protection motivation theory"

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Assessing the privacy paradox : how privacy knowledge and fear appeals shape consumers’ privacy concerns and behavioral intentions to share personal data on social networking sites
(2021-05-18) Chadraba, Emily Katherine; Bright, Laura Frances; Wilcox, Gary B.; Eastin, Matthew S.; Love, Brad; Whittaker, Tiffany A.
Issues surrounding consumer data privacy remain prevalent as the scope of information exchange, and resultant data collection capabilities continue to evolve across networked environments. While these advancing capabilities present a number of benefits for data-driven marketing and advertising, there are also a growing number of threats with regard to data misuse. Consumers demonstrate an understanding of these threats, as expressed through growing online privacy concerns. However, these concerns do not appear to stymie data sharing behaviors - resulting in what scholars call the privacy paradox. Recent industry and legislative efforts attempt to mitigate these concerns by advocating for greater consumer protection. One example where this can be seen is through the growing number of privacy control settings made available to consumers across social networking sites (SNS). As the online environment continues to grant consumers increased control over their data privacy, it remains critical to understand how these changes impact consumers privacy concerns and behaviors. Drawing from the Persuasion Knowledge Model (PKM) (Friestad & Wright, 1994), study one uses survey research to explore several variables believed to inform SNS users’ privacy knowledge, and the effect of this privacy knowledge on shaping their privacy concerns towards online and SNS environments. The results from this study highlight several key variables found to be influential in shaping respondents privacy concerns, suggesting that privacy knowledge is an effective avenue through which to explain and further explore the development of these perceptions. Using an experimental design, study two examines the impact of Gen Z SNS users’ online privacy concerns on their behavioral intention to utilize SNS privacy control settings. Applying the Protection Motivation Theory (PMT) (Rogers, 1975), this study investigates how Gen Z consumers’ respond to fear appeal information about data misuse on SNS and how this response impacts their stated intentions to adopt SNS privacy control settings. The results indicate that fear appeals are an effective means through which to elicit a fear response among this demographic. Further, this fear response is found to positively influence adaptive behavioral intention. The findings from these studies offer a number of insights to scholars and practitioners seeking to better understand, and respond to, consumers’ present-day data privacy concerns and behaviors. Specific implications and directions for future research are proposed.
Classic health communication theory and organic food promotion : does protection motivation theory apply to non-traditional remedies?
(2004-08-16) Leraris, Kristen Elaine; Wagner, Carson B.
This paper presents an exploratory study of the persuasiveness of fear appeals on potential organic foods consumers. Protection Motivation Theory (Rogers, 1983) is used as a theoretical framework, and its components--perceived vulnerability, perceived severity, response efficacy, self-efficacy, protection motivation, and behavioral intent--suggests three main hypotheses concerning attitudes, protection motivation, and behavioral intent. To test these, a two-condition between-participants experiment (N=34) was run comparing attitudes between those who were exposed to print advertisements to a control group
Unprecedented or unprepared? : exploring the role of organizations in motivating employee protective behaviors during a health crisis
(2023-04-17) Tich, Kendall Paige; Stephens, Keri K.; Donovan, Erin; Treem, Jeffrey W; O'Connor, Amy
The world has experienced an increase in crises and disasters like wildfires, hurricanes, and most recently the COVID-19 pandemic. As a result, practitioners and scholars alike have looked for ways to prepare and empower people to understand risk, prepare for disasters, and protect themselves. During health crises like the COVID-19 pandemic, organizations, the government, public health officials, and the media shared information around safety measures and healthy behaviors (Kim & Kreps, 2020; Stephens, et al., 2020) to invoke positive behaviors such as taking protective action (Liu, et al., 2020; Stephens, et al., 2020). Guided by the use of Protection Motivation Theory (Maddux & Rogers, 1983), PMT, this study applied a new perspective to our understanding of risk communication and protective action-taking: incorporating the role of organizations in risk communication to understand how people intend to respond to threats, such as the COVID-19 health threat. The current study extended research in risk information seeking, risk and disaster preparedness, and protective behaviors taken during crises by drawing on variables in the PMT. The findings revealed that although organizational relationship variables are important in understanding protection motivation behaviors, it is the exposure of employees to messages about protective action and how satisfied they are with those messages that tell the story of an organization’s role in influencing employee behavior. The connectedness one feels to their organization (i.e. identification) and the behaviors of employees around them (i.e. norms), did not significantly influence employee protective action-taking above and beyond PMT variables. The application of PMT alongside organizational variables, led to a deeper understanding of the role organizations and message exposure play in helping employees take protective actions during a crisis. This provided an important space for organizational communication scholarship to contribute to the growing body of literature in risk and crisis communication. The purpose of this study was to understand the potential impact of organizational variables on engagement in protective behaviors, above and beyond the role that PMT variables play, during a health crisis. The results build upon our understanding of the role organizations can play in the crisis context and provide significant theoretical and practical implications for organizational and risk communication and the practice of communication during a crisis. This understanding of the role message exposure and organizational message satisfaction can play during crises can help organizations make communicative improvements with the hope that future efforts can facilitate and encourage a more prepared workforce so that an “unprecedented” crisis is prepared for and “precedented.”