Temporary Sharing Prompts Unrestrained Disclosures That Leave Lasting Negative Impressions

Reto  Hofstetter; Roland  Rüppell; Leslie  John

Article | Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America | November 7, 2017

Temporary Sharing Prompts Unrestrained Disclosures That Leave Lasting Negative Impressions

by Reto Hofstetter, Roland Rüppell and Leslie John

Abstract

With the advent of social media, the impressions people make on others are based increasingly on their digital disclosures. Yet digital disclosures can come back to haunt, making it challenging for people to manage the impressions they make. In field and online experiments in which participants take, share, and evaluate “selfies” (self-photos), we show that paradoxically, these challenges can be exacerbated by temporary sharing media—technologies that prevent content from being stored permanently. Relative to permanent sharing, temporary sharing affects both whether and what people reveal. Specifically, temporary sharing increases compliance with the request to take a selfie (study 1) and induces greater disclosure risks (i.e., people exhibit greater disinhibition in their selfies, studies 1 & 2). This increased disclosure is driven by reduced privacy concerns (study 2). Yet observers’ impressions of sharers are insensitive to permanence (i.e., whether the selfie was shared temporarily versus permanently), and are instead driven by the disinhibition exhibited in the selfie (studies 4 - 7). As a result, induced by the promise of temporary sharing, sharers of uninhibited selfies come across as having worse judgment relative to those who share relatively discreet selfies (studies 1, 2, & 4-7)—an attributional pattern that is unanticipated by sharers (study 3), persistent days after the selfie has disappeared (study 5), robust to personal experience with temporary sharing (studies 6A & 6B), and holds even among friends (studies 7A & 7B). Temporary sharing may bring back forgetting, but not without introducing new (self-presentational) challenges.

Keywords: disclosure; privacy; Self-presentation; impression formation; social media; Behavior; Perspective; Online Technology;

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Citation:

Hofstetter, Reto, Roland Rüppell, and Leslie John. "Temporary Sharing Prompts Unrestrained Disclosures That Leave Lasting Negative Impressions." Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 114, no. 45 (November 7, 2017).

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The case serves as a microcosm of issues of digital privacy: the availability of data – personal data in particular – has tremendous potential to improve people’s lives and commercial endeavors alike, but it also introduces a host of privacy perils. How can the benefits of this availability of personal data be realized while mitigating the pitfalls? Concern over firms’ use and misuse of consumers’ data has been increasing, fueling a debate surrounding the regulation of online privacy. In this case, students debate this question, and devise a framework of different approaches to resolving these issues. The case provides a ripe area of inquiry for privacy issues: so-called “platform” companies, and especially platforms that run adjacent to, or even in public space. Cities are among the most ancient type of “platform,” providing a foundation for users of all types (individuals, organizations, companies) to interact, exchange, and innovate. Where platforms rely on users to generate and share data, privacy issues abound; Sidewalk Toronto is no exception.

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The case describes a program that CVS Health recently implemented to improve medication adherence, an important problem from a societal, public policy, and firm perspective. A test of the program, costing hundreds of thousands of dollars to implement, increased the proportion of adherent customers by 1.4 percentage points. Students are asked to quantify the system-wide economic benefit of this improvement and draw upon insights from behavioral science to examine approaches for boosting medication adherence.

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By the time Dan Doctoroff, CEO of Sidewalk Labs, began hosting a Reddit “Ask Me Anything” session in January 2018, he had only nine months remaining to convince the people of Toronto, their government representatives, and presumably his parent company Alphabet, Inc., that Sidewalk Labs’ plan to construct “the first truly 21st-century city” on the Canadian city’s waterfront was a sound one. Along with much excitement and optimism, strains of concern had emerged since Doctoroff and partners first announced their intentions for a city “built from the internet up” in Toronto’s Quayside district. As Doctoroff prepared for yet another milestone in a year of planning and community engagement, it was almost certain that of the many questions headed his way, digital privacy would be among them.

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Temporary Sharing Prompts Unrestrained Disclosures That Leave Lasting Negative Impressions

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