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Risk Awareness, Self-Efficacy, and Social Support Predict Secure Smartphone Usage.
Guangyu Zhou1, Mengke Gou1, Yiqun Gan1
1Beijing Key Laboratory of Behavior and Mental Health, School of Psychological and Cognitive Sciences, Peking University, Beijing, China.
Frontiers in Psychology
|June 30, 2020
Summary
Improving smartphone security requires addressing psychological factors. Enhancing self-efficacy, risk awareness, and social support collectively boosts secure smartphone use, moving beyond technical solutions.
Area of Science:
- Psychology
- Human-Computer Interaction
- Cybersecurity Behavior
Background:
- Non-compliance with smartphone security behaviors is prevalent and harmful.
- Psychological factors like self-efficacy, risk awareness, and social support influence these behaviors.
- Existing research often overlooks the interplay of these psychological factors.
Purpose of the Study:
- To examine the associations between self-efficacy, risk awareness, and social support and smartphone security behaviors.
- To explore the mechanisms underlying these associations.
- To investigate the combined effect of these psychological factors on secure smartphone use.
Main Methods:
- A longitudinal survey design was employed with 192 Chinese college students.
- Psychometric scales assessed self-efficacy, risk awareness, and social support at two time points, two weeks apart.
- Hierarchical regression analyses were conducted to determine the predictive power of psychological factors on smartphone security behaviors, controlling for covariates.
Main Results:
- Self-efficacy, risk awareness, and social support individually predicted smartphone security behaviors.
- A significant synergistic triple interaction was found among these three psychological factors.
- The combined effect of these factors significantly enhanced secure smartphone usage patterns.
Conclusions:
- Psychological factors play a crucial role in smartphone security behaviors, independent of demographic and IT-related covariates.
- Interventions should integrate psychological strategies to improve smartphone security.
- Future interventions can leverage self-efficacy, risk awareness, and social support to foster better cybersecurity practices.
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