Abstract

The Internet has penetrated people’s daily lives, but privacy issues have also attracted people’s concerns. Applying protection motivation theory to the online context, this study investigates how privacy literacy influences privacy protection behavior. This study identifies two different psychological mechanisms and examines the mediating roles of privacy concern and privacy self-efficacy. This study conducted an online survey and collected 674 data from Chinese users. The results show that privacy literacy impacts privacy protection behavior through two psychological mechanisms. First, privacy literacy impacts privacy protection behavior through privacy concern. Second, privacy literacy impacts privacy protection behavior through privacy self-efficacy. This study is among the first to explore the psychological mechanisms by which privacy literacy influences online privacy behavior. It contributes to privacy literacy and privacy literature. It helps online platforms understand the individuals’ psychological mechanisms of protecting privacy and provides important implications for them.

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