Users of social networking sites such as Facebook frequently post self-portraits on their profiles. While research has begun to analyze the motivations for posting such pictures, less is known about how selfies are evaluated by recipients. Although producers of selfies typically aim to create a positive impression, selfies may also be regarded as narcissistic and therefore fail to achieve the intended goal. The aim of this study is to examine the potentially ambivalent reception of selfies compared to photos taken by others based on the Brunswik lens model Brunswik (1956). In a between-subjects online experiment (N = 297), Facebook profile mockups were shown which differed with regard to picture type (selfie vs. photo taken by others), gender of the profile owner (female vs. male), and number of individuals within a picture (single person vs. group). Results revealed that selfies were indeed evaluated more negatively than photos taken by others. Persons in selfies were rated as less trustworthy, less socially attractive, less open to new experiences, more narcissistic and more extroverted than the same persons in photos taken by others. In addition, gender differences were observed in the perception of pictures. Male profile owners were rated as more narcissistic and less trustworthy than female profile owners, but there was no significant interaction effect of type of picture and gender. Moreover, a mediation analysis of presumed motives for posting selfies revealed that negative evaluations of selfie posting individuals were mainly driven by the perceived motivation of impression management. Findings suggest that selfies are likely to be evaluated less positively than producers of selfies might suppose.

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the German government issued a coronavirus disease 19 (COVID-19) contact-tracing app whose privacy settings were fiercely debated in advance. Contrary, potential benefits regarding the acceleration of contact tracing were advertised. This study investigated the relative importance of privacy concerns and perceived benefits in relation to the decision to use the app adopting a privacy calculus perspective extended by trust in app privacy and technological knowledge about the app. Results of a representative German sample (N = 952) revealed that privacy concerns were negatively related to app usage, and perceived benefits and knowledge were positively related to actual app adoption. Additionally, perceiving app benefits was the most important factor for (continued) usage intention, while privacy concerns did not play a role anymore. Trust was strongly negatively associated with privacy concerns and strongly positively with perceived benefits. Results are discussed concerning consequences for communication strategies when launching technology whose adoption should help in mitigating dangers of pandemics.

Although consequences of sharing personal information can be negative and severe (e.g., identity theft), individuals still engage in extensive self-disclosures on social networks. One commonly applied explanatory approach is the privacy calculus. Following this, self-disclosures can be conceptualized as rational choices resulting from a weighing of risks and benefits. However, this view misses the additional impulsive nature of decisions. The current study therefore takes the lens of dual-process theories and highlights that self-disclosure decisions can also be guided by an impulsive system. To test for the impact of descriptive social norms, a warning message, privacy-related decision-making styles, and perceived benefits and risks on individuals’ self-disclosure decisions, the fictitious social network “AHOY!” was created. It enabled the measurement of participants’ (N = 551; Mage = 40.77, SDage = 13.93) actual self-disclosures on two decision stages: 1) whether or not a post was created, 2) how much information (on a psychological and informational dimension) was provided. Further, descriptive social norms (i.e., the extent of other users’ self-disclosures) and the presence/absence of a warning message were varied. The remaining factors were measured using questionnaires. The results imply that cognitive and affective processes (expected to be triggered by the investigated factors) are involved differently in the two decision stages. While both the reflective and impulsive system may be involved in the first stage, with the reflective system also potentially taking a predominant role, the impulsive system may be predominant when deciding how much to disclose. This highlights the importance of exceeding common assumptions of rationality to better understand and support individuals’ self-disclosure decisions.

Privacy policies provide Internet users with the possibility to inform themselves about websites’ usage of their disclosed personal data. Strikingly, however, most people tend not to read privacy policies because they are long and cumbersome, indicating that people do not wish to expend much (cognitive) effort on reading such policies. The present study aimed to examine whether shorter privacy policies can be beneficial in informing users about a social networking site’s (SNS) privacy practices, and to investigate associations between variables relevant for privacy decision-making using one theory-based integrative model. In an online experiment, participants (<em>N</em> = 305) were asked to create a personal account on an SNS after being given the option to read the privacy policy. Privacy policy length and the SNS’s level of privacy were varied, creating a 2 (policy length) x 2 (level of privacy) between-subjects design. The results revealed that participants who saw short policies spent less time on reading but gained higher knowledge about the SNS’s privacy practices—due to the fact that they spent more reading time per word. Factual privacy policy knowledge was found to be an indicator for participants’ subjective privacy perception. The perception and evaluation of the specific SNS´s privacy level influenced the assessment of privacy costs and benefits. Particularly when benefits were perceived as high, self-disclosure was increased.