A Cross-Cultural Perspective on the Privacy Calculus

Abstract

The “privacy calculus” approach to studying online privacy implies that willingness to engage in disclosures on social network sites (SNSs) depends on evaluation of the resulting risks and benefits. In this article, we propose that cultural factors influence the perception of privacy risks and social gratifications. Based on survey data collected from participants from five countries (Germany [ n = 740], the Netherlands [ n = 89], the United Kingdom [ n = 67], the United States [ n = 489], and China [ n = 165]), we successfully replicated the privacy calculus. Furthermore, we found that culture plays an important role: As expected, people from cultures ranking high in individualism found it less important to generate social gratifications on SNSs as compared to people from collectivist-oriented countries. However, the latter placed greater emphasis on privacy risks—presumably to safeguard the collective. Furthermore, we identified uncertainty avoidance to be a cultural dimension crucially influencing the perception of SNS risks and benefits. As expected, people from cultures ranking high in uncertainty avoidance found privacy risks to be more important when making privacy-related disclosure decisions. At the same time, these participants ascribed lower importance to social gratifications—possibly because social encounters are perceived to be less controllable in the social media environment.

All of me? Users’ preferences for privacy-preserving data markets and the importance of anonymity

“…Historical experiences with dictatorship and surveillance as well as a long tradition of privacy regulation may have an influence on Germans' privacy attitudes. Empirical studies have shown that Germans perceive more risks in comparison to other countries and perceive information to be more sensitive (Krasnova and Veltri 2010;Trepte et al 2017;Schomakers et al 2019b).…”

“…In privacy-preserving data markets, users shall actively and voluntarily share their data. The willingness to share data is dependent on many factors, e.g., privacy concerns, benefits, type of information, and culture (Hallam and Zanella 2017;Markos et al 2017;Trepte et al 2017). This willingness to share has been extensively studied (Smith et al 2011) and some studies were conducted within the context of data markets and included privacy protection in data sharing (Roeber et al 2015;Ziefle et al 2016).…”

The Associations Between Online Media Use and Users’ Perceived Social Resources: A Meta-Analysis

“…As suggested in the relevant research literature (Borenstein, Hedges, Higgins, & Rothstein, 2009), sample and study characteristics, such as sample age, gender, population (students, the mentally or physically ill, media users, and general population), and random versus non-random samples are included, as well as year of publication. Recent literature (e.g., Trepte et al, 2017) argues that the cultural context could be important in the perception of the social gratification obtained from OMU. As such, the nationality of participants is included as a potential moderator.…”

Cultural factors and the role of privacy concerns in acceptance of government surveillance

“…This is because members are more concerned about the privacy harms that may be experienced by their collective (Posey et al 2010). Trepte et al (2017) examined the well-known privacy calculus framework in the context of culture, confirming that those with higher levels of collectivism did place a greater emphasis on privacy protections, presumably in order to safeguard their collective. Dinev, Goo, Hu, and Nam (2009) also showed that culture moderates the intentions to use protective technology; a finding which is associated with the cultural influence on perceptions about privacy (Milberg, Smith, & Burke, 2000).…”