An Empirical Investigation of Privacy: The Impact of Multiple Levels of Trust

• In Event: 066 - Section on Political Sociology Roundtables (one-hour)
  In Refereed Roundtable: Table 03. The Politics of Culture

Abstract

The research and writing related to privacy has approached the concept from psychological or philosophical perspectives with little empirical foundations. While the concept has been discussed and debated theoretically for years, little to no data has been collected. This article seeks to remedy this issue using a nationally representative web-based sample. The main focus of the paper is to provide an overview of the most influential contributors to privacy research and their theories of privacy, while also providing an exploratory empirical examination of three conceptualizations of privacy: privacy with personal information, privacy with financial information, and privacy with others’ information. Using three structural equation models, a number of demographic factors along with three levels of trust are employed to predict these three conceptualizations of privacy. Results indicate that privacy is a complex feature of individuals, with willingness to share different types of information having different predictors. This paper begins to lay the groundwork for a series of empirical investigations of differences in individuals perceptions of privacy.

Authors

• Timothy Burke Elder, Kent State University

• Fritz William Yarrison, Kent State University

• Brooke Louise Long, Kent State University