Resolving the privacy paradox: Toward a cognitive appraisal and emotion approach to online privacy behaviors

The rich context of the website interactions of online shoppers is underexplored in the research on online information privacy. This study draws on multidimensional development theory to examine the effects of general privacy concerns, cognitive appraisals, and emotions formed during actual website interactions. The results suggest that cognitive appraisals and emotions are dominant determinants of privacy behaviors. Online consumers are more likely to disclose personal information when they have positive cognitive appraisals and liking toward the website. The findings provide a novel perspective, which helps understand the so-called privacy paradox phenomenon beyond the commodity view based on the privacy calculus. (c) 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.