UC Santa Barbara

With new restrictions on abortion come novel concerns about the privacy of reproductive health information, including concerns regarding digital surveillance. This research tests the impact of an original reproductive health-focused online privacy literacy intervention on appraisals of online privacy threats, the ability to cope with these threats, and the use of individual and collective privacy protective behavior. In doing so, this dissertation contributes to the literature applying Rogers’ protection motivation theory to online privacy and expands upon the mixed results of previous studies testing online privacy literacy interventions by investigating whether an intervention targeting a specific population facing distinctly precarious privacy risks can increase privacy protective motivation by raising privacy threat and coping appraisals. Moreover, this study aims to compare perceptions of privacy threats from private corporations or organizations (e.g., targeted advertising) with privacy threats from law enforcement or government agencies (e.g., investigation or prosecution), developing the concept of legal privacy risks. This dissertation also compares a version of the intervention that included a critical thinking activity and a version that did not, thereby providing the first empirical test of Masur’s proposition that critical privacy literacy impacts personal and collective response efficacy.227 people who menstruate from across the United States participated in an online experiment in which they viewed a version of the online privacy literacy intervention or control materials before rating their threat appraisals, coping appraisals, and behavioral intentions. Results showed that those in the treatment conditions perceived online privacy threats involving their reproductive health information as more severe and more likely than those in the control condition, and they felt better equipped to cope with these threats at both the individual and collective level. Privacy threats from law enforcement were seen as less likely but more severe than those from private corporations. Variations in intervention format and focal privacy threat did not predict privacy coping appraisals, and thus this study did not find support for Masur’s assertion about critical privacy literacy. Privacy threat appraisals and coping appraisals mediated the effects of the online privacy literacy intervention on people’s intentions to engage in individual and collective privacy protection behavior, but the intervention did not predict participants’ engagement in collective behavior (i.e., contacting one’s representative about passing reproductive privacy legislation). These findings have theoretical implications for protection motivation theory and practical implications for online privacy educators, online service providers, and policy makers. Finally, this dissertation underscores the value of educating the public about privacy threats involving their reproductive health information.