Anxiety as a Barrier to Information Processing in the Event of a Cyberattack

Abstract

As postindustrial societies become more dependent on technology, they also become encumbered by greater risk. With the mounting news reports of cyberattacks, a common reaction to these technology‐based hazards is anxiety. Whether anxiety enhances or erodes information processing is a topic of debate in previous literature, and equally uncertain is whether mass anxiety facilitates or hobbles the public's ability to contemplate current events. In light of three theoretical models in the basic research of anxiety, we hypothesized that (1) anxious participants are less able to recall the information in a news report of cyberattack than their nonanxious counterparts, (2) they become increasingly inept at recalling the details as the storyline unfolds, and (3) this impairment is unique to anxiety. Participants in Study 1 (130 college students) and Study 2 (392 American adults) viewed a news story of a cyberattack and then reported their emotional states and their levels of understanding of the various parts of the report—except that the anxiety in Study 1 was naturalistic, and in Study 2, experimentally manipulated. Results from both studies showed that anxiety undermined recall performance. In addition, Study 1 found that the recall was worse towards the middle and the end of the news story and that other emotions were not significantly associated with memory deficit. Anxiety is discussed as a barrier for the public to stay informed about cyberattacks.

Fear, Anger, and Voting for the Far Right: Evidence From the November 13, 2015 Paris Terror Attacks

“…Rather than focusing on the usefulness of emotion as directing the search for information, as the theory of AIT has done, we see a more expansive role for emotion, that of animating the human capacity for agency, though of two kinds. Much of the interest in emotion in political science, psychology, and political psychology has focused on information gathering, both at the outset (Marcus & MacKuen, ) and since (Albertson & Gadarian, ; Cheung‐Blunden & Ju, ). Therefore, we propose the theory of affective agency to accommodate the core insight that information of all sorts, affective and semantic, serves human agency.…”

Situational insecurity versus entrenched ideologies as the source of right‐wing voters’ anti‐migrant sentiment on both sides of the Atlantic

“…The 9‐item measure from Cheung‐Blunden and Ju (2016) gauged the degree of fearful feelings in a given scenario on a 4‐point scale from 1 ( not at all ) to 4 ( very much ). Sample items include “I feel terrified” and “I feel chills down my spine.” The measure demonstrated high internal consistency in both samples ( α American = 0.96, α German = 0.94).…”

“…Since emotions are transient over time and inconsistent across situations, they cannot be captured validly and reliably without defining the target event (Tennen, Affleck, Armeli, & Carney, 2000). Photos of terrorist attacks can be used to orient participants’ sense of insecurity to a specific threat and remind them of the insecurity they once felt (Cheung‐Blunden & Ju, 2016; Kuppens, 2018; Lazarus, 1999; Lerner, Gonzalez, Small, & Fischhoff, 2003). As a priming tool, an imagery should be well known enough to be a reminder of a specific threat.…”

Human Factors in the Cybersecurity of Autonomous Vehicles: Trends in Current Research

“…A disease-risk metaphor and criminal behavior metaphors do not increase understanding, and a physical assault metaphor worsens it (Brase et al, 2017). The ability to memorize cybersecurity news is moderated by the cyber anxiety of the person: people with higher anxiety related to cyberattacks are bad at retaining cybersecurity-related news (Cheung-Bluden and Ju, 2016).…”