Measuring self-disclosure online: Blurring and non-response to sensitive items in web-based surveys

Abstract

People are increasingly required to disclose personal information to computer- and Internet-based systems in order to register, identify themselves or simply for the system to work as designed. In the present paper, we outline two different methods to easily measure people’s behavioral self-disclosure to web-based forms. The first, the use of an ‘I prefer not to say’ option to sensitive questions is shown to be responsive to the manipulation of level of privacy concern by increasing the salience of privacy issues, and to experimental manipulations of privacy. The second, blurring or increased ambiguity was used primarily by males in response to an income question in a high privacy condition. Implications for the study of self-disclosure in human–computer interaction and web-based research are discussed.