Distinguishing Usage and Disclosure Intentions in Privacy Research: How our two Selves Bring about differences in the effects of Benefits and Risks

Two different conceptualizations of behavioral intentions are oftentimes interchangeably used as dependent variables in privacy research: Intentions to disclose personal information to an information system (IS) and intentions to use an IS (and thereby disclose information). However, the assumption that those two conceptualizations are indeed interchangeable has not been tested yet and, if rebutted, imposes limitations when comparing and integrating results of studies using either of them. By transferring the multiple selves problem to IS privacy research, we develop theoretical arguments and provide empirical evidence that those two intentions are a) conceptually different and b) formed in different cognitive processes. A vignette-based factorial survey with 143 participants is used to show, that while risk perceptions have more impact on disclosure intentions than on usage intentions, the opposite holds for hedonic benefits.