Diminishing personal information privacy weakens image concerns

Area of Science:

• Behavioral Economics
• Social Psychology
• Information Privacy

Background:

• Social media increases social visibility but limits user control over information spread, potentially compromising privacy.
• Individuals are concerned about how others perceive their behavior, especially in online environments.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate how varying degrees of information privacy affect individuals' concerns about social evaluations.
• To understand the relationship between privacy conditions and the desire to manage one's public image.

Main Methods:

• Utilized a dictator game variant where participants self-selected as pro-self or pro-social.
• Recipients provided written evaluations of dictators' behavior.
• Manipulated information privacy by controlling message visibility (private, public, or random) and offering an option to avoid messages at a cost.

Main Results:

• Pro-self dictators showed a reduced willingness to pay for message concealment as information privacy decreased.
• Diminished privacy led to a decrease in concerns about social image and evaluations.

Conclusions:

• Image concerns are significantly influenced by the level of information privacy.
• Weak information privacy environments reduce the salience of social image management.
• Findings contribute to understanding the privacy paradox in the context of social visibility and evaluation.