The role of control in the negotiation of privacy. A social cognitive model of self-disclosure

This thesis adopts a social cognitive approach to argue for the importance of perceived control beliefs in the regulation of personal boundaries. The thesis examines the key issues that affect consumers’ willingness to disclose in e-commerce and provides empirical evidence about the relation between self-efficacy beliefs and self-disclosure behaviours. Theoretical approaches and research findings on self-disclosure in interpersonal relationships and the applications of this literature to e-commerce are reviewed. In the first study of the thesis, consumers’ views on privacy in e-commerce are analysed with long qualitative interviews. Data suggest that consumers’ willingness to disclose is related to risk awareness of broader social context and to individual differences in perceived control over interactions with companies. Results also indicate that consumers’ perception of risk has a potentially negative effect on trust in commercial organisations that operate over the Internet. This argument is experimentally tested with a study conducted over the Internet assessing the impact of awareness of data mining, reputation and rewards on willingness to disclose topics of different degrees of perceived sensitivity. A questionnaire is developed for use in the experiment with items of different perceived sensitivity. Experimental results reveal a mediating effect of awareness of risks. Awareness of risks decreases willingness to disclose by negatively affecting the perceived trustworthiness of well-reputed companies. Two studies test the hypothesis of individual differences in perceived self-efficacy as an explanation of variation in self-disclosure. Results indicate that perceived social efficacy, interpersonal control and perceived self-disclosure efficacy contribute to openness and, conversely, to privacy concerns. On the basis of research that showed the role of persuasion from significant others as an important source of self-efficacy beliefs, the hypothesis that expert feedback on previous performance might affect subsequent disclosure is explored with two experiments. The findings indicate that motivation to disclose can be enhanced by means of expert feedback. The need for further research is emphasised and implications for marketing and public policy are drawn. The final chapter presents a theoretical analysis that integrates the sociological literature on risk with the findings of the thesis to propose a social cognitive interpretation of consumers’ need for control over personal boundaries. The impact of risk awareness on consumer identity is discussed and the argument advanced that modern social changes make self-efficacy beliefs salient for the understanding of consumers’ willingness to disclose.