Personality may better predict cybersecurity behavior relative to an individual's stated intentions; however, people often behave in ways that are discordant with what they intend. Assuming most people have the intention of complying with safe practices, it is still no surprise that people violate policies and put sensitive data at risk regularly. Previous research has investigated all of the "Big Five" personality factors in relation to cybersecurity behavior, although there is no consensus regarding which factors are most important. In this study, data were collected from 676 undergraduate students who were administered the Employees' Online Security Behavior and Beliefs questionnaire and the Big Five Inventory-44. Significant correlations were observed between self-reported cybersecurity behaviors and some, but not all, personality constructs. Linear regression was used to examine whether the 5 personality factors were significantly associated with cybersecurity behaviors, and a hierarchical regression examined the personality factors that explained additional variance over-and-above cybersecurity behaviors, specifically perceived barriers, response efficacy, and security self-efficacy. Conscientiousness, agreeableness, and openness were significantly associated with self-reported cybersecurity behaviors. Results suggest that personality plays an important role in understanding cybersecurity behaviors, which is consistent with a growing body of literature highlighting conscientiousness as a strong predictor of cybersecurity behaviors. The present study's findings suggest that personality structure is associated with cybersecurity behaviors and that conscientiousness and openness may be particularly salient to this relationship. Public Policy Relevance StatementGiven today's digitally connected world, minimizing threats to information security have become increasingly important. People tend to be considered the weakest link in cybersecurity infrastructure. The present study investigated the association between personality characteristics and cybersecurity behaviors, and the results have implications for cybersecurity training as well as hiring practices.

Background The Healthy People 2020 initiative aims to reduce health disparities, including alcohol use, among sexual minority women (SMW; eg, lesbian, bisexual, queer, and pansexual). Compared with heterosexual women, SMW engage in more hazardous drinking and report more alcohol-related problems. Sexual minority stress (ie, the unique experiences associated with stigmatization and marginalization) has been associated with alcohol use among SMW. Among heterosexuals, relationship factors (eg, partner violence and drinking apart vs together) have also been associated with alcohol use. Negative affect has also been identified as a contributor to alcohol use. To date, most studies examining alcohol use among SMW have used cross-sectional or longitudinal designs. Objective Project Relate was designed to increase our understanding of alcohol use among young SMW who are at risk for alcohol problems. The primary objectives of this study are to identify daily factors, as well as potential person-level risk and protective factors, which may contribute to alcohol use in SMW. Secondary objectives include examining other physical and mental concerns in this sample (eg, other substance use, eating, physical activity, and stress). Methods Both partners of a female same-sex couple (aged 18-35 years; n=150 couples) are being enrolled in the study following preliminary screening by a market research firm that specializes in recruiting sexual minority individuals. Web-based surveys are being used to collect information about the primary constructs of interest (daily experiences of alcohol use, sexual minority stress, relationship interactions, and mood) as well as secondary measures of other physical and mental health constructs. Data are collected entirely remotely from women across the United States. Each member of eligible couples completes a baseline survey and then 14 days of daily surveys each morning. Data will be analyzed using multilevel structural equation modeling. Results To date, 208 women (ie, 104 couples) were successfully screened and enrolled into the study. In total, 164 women have completed the 14-day daily protocol. Compliance with completing the daily diaries has been excellent, with participants on average completing 92% of the daily diaries. Data collection will be completed in fall 2018, with results published as early as 2019 or 2020. Conclusions Project Relate is designed to increase our understanding of between- and within-person processes underlying hazardous drinking in understudied, at-risk SMW. The study includes a remote daily diary methodology to provide insight into variables that may be associated with daily hazardous alcohol use. Before the development of programs that address hazardous alcohol use among young SMW, there is a need for better understanding of individual and dyadic variables that contribute to risk in this population. The unique challenges of recruitin...

Lesbian women face unique sexual minority stressors (SMS) due to their stigmatized and marginalized status in society. Existing studies of SMS are primarily cross-sectional and use global measures of SMS. The goal of the present study was to develop a brief daily measure of SMS for use in daily diary or ecological momentary assessment (EMA) studies. Existing retrospective measures of SMS were reviewed, resulting in an initial pool of 29 items. Thirty-eight lesbian women (age=24.3 years, range: 19-30 years) completed a daily web-based survey including the SMS items for 12 days. Two response scales were tested; participants were randomized to receive a 3-point (for brevity) or 7-point (for precision) scale for the first 6 days and the other response scale for the remaining 6 days to counterbalance order. Findings suggest the 7-point scale was optimal because it provided greater variability. To reduce scale length, item correlations were examined to identify clusters and one item was retained from each cluster, reducing the scale to 18 items. Then, using HLM, null models with each item as the outcome were conducted to examine level-1 and level-2 variances; 8-, 10-, 12-, and 18-item scales were compared to identify the ideal number of items. The 8-item scale had the highest Cronbach's alpha (.85) and the smallest intraclass correlation (ICC; .13), suggesting these 8 items are optimal for capturing within-person variability in young lesbian women's daily SMS experiences. As researchers are increasingly interested in using EMA methods, this 8-item measure can assess SMS in lesbian women's everyday lives.

Purpose: Health disparities have been identified between groups of diverse young sexual minority women (SMW) and heterosexual women. This approach may generate sufficient group sizes for statistical analyses but obscures important differences. Moreover, some young women may not identify as ''lesbian'' or ''bisexual'' but somewhere in between. This study examined health and sexual minority identity-specific outcomes among three groups of SMW-women who identify as ''exclusively lesbian,'' ''mostly lesbian,'' and ''bisexual.'' Methods: Participants were 990 young (18-30 years old) SMW (exclusively lesbian: n = 305, mostly lesbian: n = 133, bisexual: n = 552) who completed an online survey, including information about mental and physical health symptoms, hazardous drinking, and identity uncertainty. Those who reported alcohol use in the past 30 days responded to questions about their alcohol use and alcohol-related negative consequences. Results: Controlling for demographic differences, health outcomes varied significantly by identity. Mostly lesbian and bisexual women reported the most depression, anxiety, and physical health symptoms; mostly lesbian women reported the highest levels of hazardous drinking. Among those who reported drinking, mostly lesbian women drank the most frequently and reported the most alcohol-related consequences. Mostly lesbian women reported the most identity uncertainty. Conclusion: Mostly lesbian women were similar to bisexual women on several health outcomes. They appear unique, however, in drinking behavior and identity uncertainty. Collapsing across identities in health research may affect outcomes.

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