The Impact of Personalized Social Cues of Immediacy on Consumers' Information Disclosure: A Social Cognitive Approach

Abstract

This study examined how personalized social cues of immediacy can affect two types of information disclosure intentions (embarrassing information and descriptive information) directly and indirectly through two positive outcome expectations (social trust and customization outcome expectations) and two negative outcome expectations (embarrassment and information abuse outcome expectations) in the context of a personal health record (PHR) Web-site service. An online experiment was chosen and 252 participants were directed to visit a newly created PHR Web site. The results showed that, regardless of the two different type of information, participants' exposure to the high-immediacy level on the site increased their information disclosure intentions even when their privacy self-efficacy beliefs were controlled. Further, the results of path analyses suggest that such main effect on information disclosure is mediated by social cognitive variables of positive and negative outcome expectations.