On average, across items, 38.98% of the victims selected a response of 6 or 7, indicating that the items described their emotional experiences well in general (for more information see Table S1 in Supplementary Data S2). Across all reported types of cybersecurity breaches, the average score for all items was 4.64 on a scale from 1 to 7 ( Supplementary Data S2). Moreover, we investigate how these emotion processes are affected by age, gender, and type of hacking experience.Įmotion features of the Cybersecurity GRID questionnaire were found to be relevant for describing the actual experiences of cybersecurity breaches. We go beyond studying feelings, such as negative affectivity, and also take into account appraisals (cognitive), action tendencies (motivational), expressions (face, voice, and gestures), and bodily reactions (physiological), as well as regulation mechanisms people can use to deal with their emotional processes that jointly make up the emotion process (componential emotion approach 4, 5, 11). In this study, we investigate the structure of emotion processes in the context of cybersecurity breaches. 6–10 However, the emotional experiences themselves have not yet been the focus of scientific research, although they can be considered to be the first psychological reaction to these breaches and play a key role in possible long-term consequences. 3–5 Negative emotions, such as anxiety, anger, sadness, and insecurity, have in a few studies already been found to be associated with cybersecurity attacks. They can, therefore, be considered to be powerful situational antecedents for negative emotions. Cybersecurity breaches can prevent the pursuit of individual goals in many areas of life. The challenges, though, are not only technological, societal, or economical, but also psychological. Governments have identified cybersecurity as one of the main challenges of our connected society, with the possibility for substantial negative economic impact (e.g., Eur Lex 2). However, the increasing interconnectedness also entails an increasing vulnerability to cybersecurity breaches (unauthorized access and manipulation of information through the cyberspace). 1 For a long time, its invention has been welcomed with unbridled enthusiasm, as it created unprecedented possibilities for the interconnectedness of people. In 2019, the 50 th anniversary of the Internet was celebrated. The newly developed instrument uses a comprehensive approach to assess emotional reactions to cybersecurity threats and provides an efficient way to identify potentially problematic reactions. These people, especially, can be expected to be vulnerable to psychological complaints and possibly psychopathology. Although some people have a tendency to react with constructive and proactive actions that are likely to limit the negative consequences of the cybersecurity breach, others experience a strong negative affective stress reaction and are unlikely to take the appropriate steps to deal with the security breach situation. This study clearly indicated that cybersecurity breaches do not only form a challenge for engineers, but also have important psychological ramifications that need to be addressed. The third dimension revealed cognitive motivational reactions that were opposed to affective reactions. The second dimension revealed constructive action tendencies and subjective feelings that were opposed to unconstructive action tendencies, expressions, and bodily reactions. The first dimension represented the extent to which the person was generally emotionally affected. A principal component analysis on a total of 75 emotion reactions revealed a clear three-dimensional structure. In total, 145 participants that experienced a cybersecurity breach reported on their appraisals, action tendencies, bodily reactions, expressions, subjective feelings, and regulation attempts. This new instrument covered all five emotion components identified by the componential emotion approach. Based on prior research, a context-specific instrument was developed. This study investigated emotional reactions to cybersecurity breaches.
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