Inducing Customers to Disclose Personal Information to Internet Businesses with Social Adjustment Benefits

To effectively pursue a strategy of focused marketing, Internet businesses need to solicit personal information from consumers. Indeed, many Internet businesses have been offering consumers economic benefits (like monetary rewards) in exchange for their personal information. However, a more cost-effective way to solicit such personal information may be to use psychological benefits. This study investigates how social adjustment benefits (a type of psychological benefits based on human need for affiliation) can be used by Internet businesses to induce consumers to disclose their personal information. Drawing on psychology literature, this study focuses on the match between consumer characteristics (extraversion) and the media (electronic and traditional) used to offer social adjustment benefits. Results from a research experiment reveal that (1) consumers who are extraverts tend to be willing to disclose personal information when social adjustment benefits are offered via either traditional or electronic media and (2) consumers who are introverts tend to be willing to disclose personal information only when social adjustment benefits are offered via electronic media. Besides contributing to a theory on how Internet businesses can motivate consumers to disclose their personal information through psychological benefits, these results guide Internet businesses on how to more effectively induce consumers to disclose their personal information.