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A Quantitative Field Study of a Persuasive Security Technology in the Wild

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Social Informatics (SocInfo 2022)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNCS,volume 13618))

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Abstract

Persuasive techniques and persuasive technologies have been suggested as a means to improve user cybersecurity behaviour, but there have been few quantitative studies in this area. In this paper, we present a large scale evaluation of persuasive messages designed to encourage University staff to complete security training. Persuasive messages were based on Cialdini’s principles of persuasion, randomly assigned, and transmitted by email. The training was real, and the messages sent constituted the real campaign to motivate users during the study period. We observed statistically significant variations, but with mild effect sizes, in participant responses to the persuasive messages. ‘Unity’ persuasive messages that had increased emphasis on the collaborative role of individual users as part of an organisation-wide team effort towards cybersecurity were more effective compared to ‘Authority’ messages that had increased emphasis on a mandatory obligation of users imposed by a hierarchical authority. Participant and organisational factors also appear to impact upon participant responses. The study suggests that the use of messages emphasising different principles of persuasion may have different levels of effectiveness in encouraging users to take particular security actions. In particular, it suggests that the use of social capital, in the form of increased emphasis of ‘unity’, may be more effective than increased emphasis of ‘authority’. These findings motivate further studies of how the use of Social capital may be beneficial for encouraging individuals to adopt similar positive security behaviours.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Permission for using opt-out rather than opt-in consent was granted by the university ethics committee, and the emails made it very clear that participation in the study would not impact on work.

  2. 2.

    Grade refers to an ordered grouping of roles within the organisation.

  3. 3.

    This is after the exclusion of staff who opted-out, staff who were excluded as their anonymity could not be guaranteed, and cases where the data showed anomalies such as training being completed before the notifications were sent, e.g. IT staff testing access to the training.

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Acknowledgements

This research was supported by the UKRI EPSRC award: EP/P011829/1.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Edinburgh Napier University, Edinburgh, UK

    John Paul Vargheese

  2. University of Aberdeen, Aberdeen, UK

    Matthew Collinson

  3. Utrecht University, Utrecht, The Netherlands

    Judith Masthoff

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  1. John Paul Vargheese
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  2. Matthew Collinson
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  3. Judith Masthoff
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to John Paul Vargheese .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Universität Koblenz-Landau, Koblenz, Germany

    Frank Hopfgartner

  2. National University of Singapore, Singapore, Singapore

    Kokil Jaidka

  3. GESIS – Leibniz-Institut für Sozialwissenschaften, Cologne, Germany

    Philipp Mayr

  4. University of Glasgow, Glasgow, UK

    Joemon Jose

  5. University of Glasgow, Glasgow, UK

    Jan Breitsohl

Exploratory Analysis

Exploratory Analysis

This section reports results from an exploratory analysis of participant and organisational factors captured during the study. The aim of this analysis was to discover whether there are significant variations in the distribution of response categories for each factor. Our research questions and hypothesis are:

  • RQ2 Is the distribution of participant responses the same for all participant and organisational factors?

  • \(H^0\) There is no significant variation in the distribution of response categories for all participant and organisational factors.

  • \(H^1\) There is a significant variation in the distribution of response categories for all participant and organisational factors.

We expanded RQ2 to RQ2a, RQ2b and RQ2c to account for gender, grade and School respectively.

1.1 Analysis of Gender and Participant Responses

Table 3. Distribution of response categories by gender
Full size table

Table 3 shows the distribution of response categories by gender. To discover whether there is a significant variation in the distribution of response categories by participant gender, we conducted a Mann-Whitney U test, which is suitable for identifying whether there is a significant variation in the distribution of an dependent variable (response categories) between two independent groups (male and female). Results from this test indicates that there is an overall significant difference between female and male participants \((\textit{U}\,(Female = 919, Male = 673) = 328527, twotailed, \textit{p} = .03, \textit{r} = .1)\). It appears that female participants completing the training earlier with fewer not completing the training compared to male participants. We therefore address RQ2a by concluding that there was an overall impact of gender on participant responses during the study. We note that despite discovering a significant variation in the distribution of response categories between female and male participants, the effect size is small [27].

1.2 Analysis of Grade and Participant Responses

Table 4 shows the distribution of response categories by participant grade. To discover whether was any significant variation in the distribution of response categories by grade, we conducted a Kruskal Wallis test as discussed in Sect. 4. Results from this test indicate that there is an overall significant variation in the distribution of response categories between grades \((\textit{H}(2) = 10, \textit{p} = 0.007\)). Following these results, we conducted a post-hoc Dunn’s test to discover whether there were any specific significant variations in response categories between grades. Pairwise comparisons using Bonferroni adjusted p -values reveal a significant difference between Grades 1 and 3 (\({p = .01, r = -.1})\) and between Grades 2 and 3 \((\textit{p} = .03, \textit{r} = -.1 )\). It appears that participants within lower grades completed the training earlier, with fewer participants not completing the training, with the greatest difference being between Grades 1 and 3 compared to between Grades 2 and 3, although we note that effect sizes for these observations are small [27]. We therefore address RQ2b by concluding that there was an overall impact of grade on participant responses during the study. Results from our post-hoc analysis suggests participants in lower grades completed the training earlier with fewer participants not completing the training, compared to those in higher grades.

Table 4. Distribution of response categories by grade
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1.3 Analysis of School and Participant Responses

Table 5. Distribution of response categories by School
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Table 5 shows the distribution of response categories by School. We repeat our approach for analysis grade in our analysis of School using a Kruskal Wallis test. Results indicate a significant variation in the distribution of response categories between Schools \((\textit{H}(12) = 64.1, \textit{p} < .01 )\). Table 6 lists all significant pairwise comparisons between Schools, with Bonferroni corrected p values.

Table 6. Post-hoc pairwise comparison of response categories by School with Bonferroni adjusted p values (non significant results have been excluded)
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For each significant comparison, it appears that participants in Schools 1, 4, 6 and 7 completed the training earlier, with fewer participants not completing the training, compared to Schools 3, 5 and 10, respectively for each comparison listed. Effect sizes for these observations are small. We address RQ2c by concluding that there was an overall impact of school on participant responses during the study. Due to the needs to preserve the anonymity of schools within the university, our conclusions as to the specific pairwise differences between schools are limited. Further studies are required to investigate what properties of the schools may lead to such results.

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Vargheese, J.P., Collinson, M., Masthoff, J. (2022). A Quantitative Field Study of a Persuasive Security Technology in the Wild. In: Hopfgartner, F., Jaidka, K., Mayr, P., Jose, J., Breitsohl, J. (eds) Social Informatics. SocInfo 2022. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 13618. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-19097-1_13

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