Many people readily disclose personal information if such disclosure is associated with personal benefits. This behavior is often in stark contrast to their stated concerns about data protection and use
Philipp Hartl, Daniel Schnurr
of their data [Gerber et al., 2018], giving rise to the renowned privacy paradox [Norberg et al., 2007]. However, much less is known about individuals’ stated intentions and actual behavior when data is disclosed for the common good. Therefore, this study investigates whether the privacy paradox extends to data donations. From a theoretical perspective, we hypothesize that the intention-behavior gap may even be more relevant for data donations, as prosocial behavior itself is often characterized by inconsistencies between individuals’ stated intentions and actual action. In particular, people often express
a higher willingness to engage in prosocial behavior than they are actually willing to do due to social desirability [Crowne and Marlowe, 1960]. Based on a between-subjects online experiment, we therefore measure both the stated intentions and actual data disclosure of participants when data is disclosed either for personal or social benefits. By doing so, we can test for potential intention-behavior gaps [Webb and Sheeran, 2006] and whether they can be explained by well-accepted theories on individuals’ privacy decision-making [Culnan and Bies, 2003] and pro-social behavior. To minimize priming effects, the experimental design separates measurement of intentions from actual data disclosure by a temporal delay. Finally, we elicit subjects’ personality traits and privacy attitudes to evaluate their influence on stated intentions and actual willingness to donate data to gain a better understanding of individuals’ incentives to engage in pro-social data disclosure. Altogether, this study contributes to an improved understanding of intention-behavior gaps in the context of data donation. These findings bear important insights for data regulation and the design of data donation platforms and campaigns.