Disentangling the relation among trust, efficacy and privacy management: a moderated mediation analysis of public support for government surveillance during the COVID-19 pandemic

Jing Liu*, Marko M. Skoric, Chen Li

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

This study examines the effects of political/cultural beliefs and situational perceptions on public support for government surveillance amidst COVID-19, using a representative survey conducted in Hong Kong. Our results indicate that situational responses (i.e. privacy trust and self-efficacy) balance against each other in mediating the effects of political/cultural beliefs (i.e. political trust, political efficacy, democratic-individualism) and situational perceptions (i.e. perceived cost and benefit of disclosure, perceived threat of COVID-19) on surveillance support. Both perceived benefit of disclosure and political trust positively affects surveillance support indirectly by promoting the contributing mediator privacy trust while suppressing the inhibiting mediator privacy self-efficacy. Perceived cost of disclosure shows no direct effect, but a positive indirect effect on surveillance support by suppressing privacy self-efficacy; perceived threat shows a positive direct effect while a negative indirect effect by suppressing privacy trust. Internal political efficacy shows a strong negative direct effect, but no indirect effect; and external political efficacy shows a negative indirect effect by promoting privacy self-efficacy. Alternative media use, as a proxy for democratic-individualism, mitigates situational perceptions’ effects on surveillance support, regardless of the directions. The findings advance our understanding of the formation process of public opinion on government surveillance.

Original languageEnglish
JournalBehaviour and Information Technology
DOIs
Publication statusE-pub ahead of print - 20 Feb 2023

Scopus Subject Areas

  • Developmental and Educational Psychology
  • Arts and Humanities (miscellaneous)
  • Social Sciences(all)
  • Human-Computer Interaction

User-Defined Keywords

  • alternative media use
  • government surveillance
  • political trust and efficacy
  • privacy calculus
  • privacy trust and self-efficacy

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