A Study of the Effect of Anger on Immoral Judgment of Internet Privacy Invasion

With the emergence of Web 2.0, people are able to share their thoughts and photos with their friends and strangers. Yet, they also risk invasion of their privacy. Information privacy has therefore become an important issue in the information age. In this research, we focus on the influence of anger on immoral judgment of privacy invasion in cyberspace. Specifically, two scenarios, nonviolent and violent-depiction, are designed to investigate the influence of anger on immoral decision making. Our results revealed that the level of anger will increase immoral judgment in nonviolent and violent depiction scenarios, respectively. And the level of anger in violent-depiction scenario is higher than in nonviolent-depiction scenario. The research findings show that college students easily make an immoral judgment in violent situations. In violent depiction scenario, however, high moral obligation group can enhance the effect of ethical self-efficacy for moral judgment. Keyword: moral judgment, immoral judgment, anger, ethical self-efficacy, moral obligation.