Identity-Based Motivation and the Logic of Conversations Obfuscate Loss of Online Privacy and What Policy-Makers Can Do About It

Journal of Consumer Psychology · 2020 · Volume 30 · Issue 4

Abstract

People care about their privacy, but when they are online, they do not act as if they do. We apply the psychology of meaning-making to shed light on why that is. Acquisti, Loewenstein, and Brandimarte (2020) review of factors relevant to gaps between privacy attitudes and behaviors highlights both the importance of the problem of online privacy and its intractability, given current thinking about what can be done. Connecting their discussion with the psychology of meaning-making, operationalized by integrating identity-based motivation theory with the logic of communication and anthropomorphizing, this commentary addresses why people narrowly conceptualize what privacy they are losing and fail to act as if privacy matters, as well as what can be done about it at a policy level.

Keywords

Cognition, Communication, Economic psychology, Meta-cognition and metacognitive experience, Online consumer behavior, Product and product design, Public policy issues, Self and identity

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