Media Effects Research Lab - Research Archive
Disclosing Sensitive vs. Non-sensitive Information:
Student Researcher(s)
Sangwook Lee (Ph.D Candidate);
Giselle Pu (Ph.D Candidate);
Yin Yang (Ph.D Candidate);
Faculty Supervisor
Introduction
Game players may share private information, such as password and username, with other players to seek assistance, such as logging in to the game to maintain consistent login records. The information disclosure may cause privacy leaks or issues lost. The research examines the factors impacting game players to disclose information disclosure intention, following communication privacy management theory.
Research Question/Hypotheses
H1: Privacy ownership rule will be positively related to disclosure intention to a) sensitive information, and b) non-sensitive information.
H2: Level of privacy ownership rule will be positively correlated with their trust in other game players.
H3: Trust will be positively correlated with self-disclosure intention on (a) sensitive information and (b) non-sensitive information.
H4a: The relationship between the degree of trust and the level of sensitive information disclosing intention will be moderated by the degree of privacy risk perception.
H4b: The relationship between the degree of trust and the level of non-sensitive information disclosing intention will not be moderated by the degree of privacy risk perception.
Method
300 participants were recruited from Amazon MTturk for the survey research. The final dataset contains 280 questionnaires. Participants signed the consent form, and those who meet the screening criteria answered questions regarding privacy ownership rule, trust, privacy risk perception, and disclosure intention of sensitive and non-sensitive information.
Results
For the model with the dependent variable of sensitive information disclosure, the moderated mediation model was supported. Privacy ownership rule is positively related to disclosure intention on sensitive information. Privacy ownership rule impacts disclosure intention on sensitive information indirectly via trust. The correlations between trust and disclosure intention on sensitive information were moderated by privacy risk perception. People
with a higher-level privacy ownership rule show higher trust in others. People with high trust on others are more likely to disclose sensitive information. For people who have a medium or high level of privacy risk perception, higher trust is correlated to higher intention of sensitive information disclosure.
We also found that privacy ownership rule is positively related to disclosure intention on non-sensitive information and is positively related to trust. People who have higher privacy ownership rule are more likely to disclose non-sensitive information and trust other players more.
Conclusions/Discussion
The current study investigates the relationship among privacy ownership rule, trust, privacy risk perception, and disclosure intention on sensitive and non-sensitive information. This study reveals the psychological mechanism of sensitive and non-sensitive information disclosure intention in the online game context. The results of the study indicate that the better people follow the privacy ownership rule, the more trust they have in other online game players, the more likely that they disclose information to others. Trust mediates the effect of privacy ownership rule on disclosure intention of sensitive information for individuals who have moderate and high privacy risk perception. On the other hand, disclosure intention of non-sensitive information does not require the trust in other gamers and privacy risk perception also does not impact disclosure intention. In other words, there is only a direct effect between privacy ownership rule and disclosure intention. Following the results, this study contributes to the private information management in the online game as an online community.
For more details regarding the study contact
Dr. S. Shyam Sundar by e-mail at sss12@psu.edu or by telephone at (814) 865-2173