Abstract

Protection motivation theory has been adopted to understand the driver of information security behaviors broadly. Based on theoretical arguments and empirical results, security behaviors are driven by individuals’ appraisal toward threats and coping. However, while most study focus on the impacts of independent variables on dependent variables, previous studies largely ignore a fact that, under certain conditions, individuals tend to weight the importance of threat (or coping) appraisal more. Given that the goal of security behavior is to protection information and individuals may be oriented to the goal differently, we argue that the magnitude of the impacts of threat and coping appraisal may be contingent on individuals’ goal orientation. Specifically, this study attempts to integrate protection motivation theory with regulatory focus theory and explore whether (1) threat appraisal is more critical when prevention focus in high and (2) coping appraisal generates more impact when promotion focus is high. By integrating protection motivation theory with regulatory focus theory and revealing the moderating roles of regulatory focus on protection motivations, we expect to contribute to protection motivation theory by showing the effects of threat and coping appraisal may be contingent on certain conditions.

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