Predicting Facebook Users' Online Privacy Protection: Risk, Trust, Norm Focus Theory, and the Theory of Planned Behavior

The present research adopts an extended theory of planned behavior model that included descriptive norms, risk, and trust to investigate online privacy protection in Facebook users. Facebook users (N=119) completed a questionnaire assessing their attitude, subjective injunctive norm, subjective descriptive norm, perceived behavioral control, implicit perceived risk, trust of other Facebook users, and intentions toward protecting their privacy online. Behavior was measured indirectly two weeks after the study. The data show partial support for the theory of planned behavior, and strong support for the independence of subjective injunctive and descriptive norms. Risk also uniquely predicted intentions over and above the theory of planned behavior, but were no unique effects of trust on intentions, or of risk or trust on behavior. Implications are discussed.