An Affect Primary Framework for Privacy Decision Making

Abstract

With the growth of networked computing, the role of information security and information privacy risks have received significant attention from IS researchers. Many models of risk in the literature assume that people carefully evaluate the costs and benefits of engaging in risky activities. Recent research shows that automatic judgments of risks (affect) and momentary feelings play a significant role in risk judgment and behavior. In this paper, we critique the calculus-based models of privacy risk and explain how affect and momentary feelings suggest alternate explanations and predictions. A conceptual framework, incorporating automatic affect, deliberation and momentary feelings is proposed for risky decision making. Literature on IS privacy concerns is used to illustrate the framework.

Keywords: Affect, Affect Heuristic, momentary feelings, risk-as-feelings, privacy concern, automatic evaluations, Dual Process models