TEMPORAL CONSTRUAL OF CAUSES AND EFFECTS IN TECHNOLOGY THREAT AVOIDANCE

Abstract

In the field of information system (IS) security, the communication of IT threats is crucial to IT users’ IS security responses (i.e., motivation and behaviours). IS security responses can be influenced by how information about IT threats are communicated to IT users. Existing IS security studies have rarely considered the fact that the communicated IT threat information is construed outside of individuals’ present moment. Leveraging on the theoretical concepts of construal level theory, I argue that IT users can adopt high- (vs low-) level construals when thinking about the information relating to IT threats which are perceived as temporally distal (vs proximal). Three experimental studies were conducted to find out how temporal construal of causes and effects features of IT threat information can stimulate IT users' IS security responses. Implications of the results were discussed.