Going Through the Emotions of Regret and Fear: Identity Theft Protection Motivation

We explore why and how individuals accept or reject recommended steps to respond to the threat of identity theft.

Published: International Journal of Information Management https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijinfomgt.2021.102432

Authors: Obi Ogbanufe, Robert Pavur

Quantifying the total cost, both monetarily and emotionally, borne by individual consumers due to identity theft is both staggering and elusive. Are individuals motivated to prevent identity theft?

One in five people who received a security breach notification also became a victim of identity-related fraud (Javelin, 2015).

Abstract

We explore why and how individuals adaptively and maladaptively respond to the threat of identity theft. We use protection motivation theory and regret theory, shedding light on how the individual’s reflection of a future negative event, which they did nothing to prevent, would influence their current behavior. Fear appeal is experimentally manipulated to test different models of high and low threat. By comparing the impact of anticipated regret and fear on individuals’ protection motivation, we find that discrete emotions of fear and anticipated regret behave differently in increasing adaptive and reducing maladaptive responses to identity theft. Specifically, whereas fear is only effective when threat is high, anticipated regret is effective in both high and low threat conditions. Also, we find that anticipated regret has the most potent effect on increasing adaptive coping responses in a low threat model. This means that anticipated regret could be used in situations where the threat is low rather than fear. This research provides empirical evidence of conditions under which fear and regret

motivate personal security protection measures, enabling practitioners to promote identity theft protection more efficiently. #cybersecurity, #identitytheft, #protectionmotivation

Arousing fear is not enough. Anticipated regret has more strength in motivating behaviors than fear.

For example, anticipated regret could become actionable by incorporating the following into training programs: “imagine how you would feel if you lost [your life savings to identity theft] when you could have prevented it with [fraud alert]” or “imagine how you would feel if you lost [access to your bank account] because you didn’t use [fraud alert].” The words in the bracket can be replaced with any context-specific threat/loss and recommended coping responses

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