Self‐disclosure on the web : Rewards, safety cues, and the moderating role of regulatory focus

Purpose – Rewards and safety cues are frequently used by online marketers to enhance privacy attitudes and to encourage self‐disclosure of personal information. The purpose of this paper is to study the relative effectiveness of these influence strategies and test the boundary condition of regulatory focus. Design/methodology/approach – The authors conduct an online scenario‐based experiment with a sample of adult consumers. The results were analyzed using multivariate and univariate analysis of variance. Findings – The findings show that the use of rewards and safety cues has varying effects on privacy attitudes and self‐disclosure, and that these effects depend on consumers' regulatory focus. Originality/value – The relative effectiveness of rewards and safety cues for enhancing privacy attitudes and encouraging self‐disclosure is not clear from prior research, and boundary conditions have not been established. To the authors' knowledge, this is the first study to examine regulatory focus as a moderating variable in the relationship between online influence strategies and privacy outcomes.