Adaptive and maladaptive factors behind password manager use: A hope-extended protection motivation perspective

Abstract

Robust password management is crucial for users’ information security. The use of password manager technology, which constitutes adaptive coping, is the dominant method for robust password management. Nonetheless, many users engage in maladaptive coping, adopting poor password management behaviors, such as using easy-to-remember passwords and using the same password across multiple accounts. Against this backdrop, this paper considers both adaptive and maladaptive coping factors for studying password manager use. As such, we incorporate the adaptive coping factor of password manager trustworthiness and the maladaptive coping factor of password mismanagement convenience into a research model that draws upon Hope-extended Protection Motivation Theory. We tested our model with a survey of US users. Our main findings indicate that password manager trustworthiness drives users’ appraised coping potential and that password mismanagement convenience has a context-specific (i.e., specific to the password manager use context) intricacy in how it reduces password manager use. Our theoretical contributions include expanding the range of Protection Motivation Theory's input sources, expanding the range of the studied context-specific factors in the password manager use context, and unveiling the uniqueness of the password manager context. This work also informs practice, especially with respect to how messages that aim to promote password manager use may be designed.