Self-disclosure on social networks: More than a rational decision-making process

Although consequences of sharing personal information can be negative and severe (e.g., identity theft), individuals still engage in extensive self-disclosures on social networks. One commonly applied explanatory approach is the privacy calculus. Following this, self-disclosures can be conceptualized as rational choices resulting from a weighing of risks and benefits. However, this view misses the additional impulsive nature of decisions. The current study therefore takes the lens of dual-process theories and highlights that self-disclosure decisions can also be guided by an impulsive system. To test for the impact of descriptive social norms, a warning message, privacy-related decision-making styles, and perceived benefits and risks on individuals’ self-disclosure decisions, the fictitious social network “AHOY!” was created. It enabled the measurement of participants’ (N = 551; Mage = 40.77, SDage = 13.93) actual self-disclosures on two decision stages: 1) whether or not a post was created, 2) how much information (on a psychological and informational dimension) was provided. Further, descriptive social norms (i.e., the extent of other users’ self-disclosures) and the presence/absence of a warning message were varied. The remaining factors were measured using questionnaires. The results imply that cognitive and affective processes (expected to be triggered by the investigated factors) are involved differently in the two decision stages. While both the reflective and impulsive system may be involved in the first stage, with the reflective system also potentially taking a predominant role, the impulsive system may be predominant when deciding how much to disclose. This highlights the importance of exceeding common assumptions of rationality to better understand and support individuals’ self-disclosure decisions.