Communication Privacy Management Theory Studies

Many studies have been done on the subject of CPM, subjects ranging from online privacy to familial privacy, and so on. The first peer reviewed article I researched was on CPM in social media, and the motivations behind and consequences of voluntary disclosure on the internet. The study was done by Susan Waters and James Ackerman in 2011. The study took 59 completed voluntary and anonymous surveys from active Facebook users over the age of 18 (meaning they had signed on in the past 30 days). 61% of the responders were female and 39% were male, all participants were undergraduates and the average age of subjects was 19-20. The study found that there are four main motivations for users to disclose private information on Facebook: sharing information on Facebook can be seen as fun, it can be a form of entertainment, to keep up with trends, or to publicize events and/or their popularity. The first perceived consequence of information disclosure on Facebook found from the study was a positive one: it makes the user feel they are managing their relationships more efficiently and care for the psychological wellbeing better. The second perceived consequence of information disclosure on Facebook was negative: the subjects of the study often find themselves spending too much time on the site. This study also found that Facebook has changed who we consider a “friend” or a confidant drastically (Waters & Ackerman, 2011). As time goes on private information disclosure is changing rapidly with the increased dependency on social media as a tool of confidant mediation. It lends the ability to confide private information rapidly to as many people as one would like, creating a vast net of co-ownership and mutual boundaries.

The second journal I researched was titled “Friend or not to friend: Coworker Facebook friend requests as an application of communication privacy management theory” written by Bethany D. Frampton and Jeffrey T. Child in 2013, regarding Facebook in terms of the workplace, rather than in general. 312 working professional, Facebook users completed online surveys. The study showed that most people will accept co-worker invitations on Facebook, but it varied based on current Facebook disclosure practices by the owner, workspace privacy boundaries. Only 25% of users change their privacy settings after accepting a friend request from a co-worker. The study found that the atmosphere of the workplace, the real-world relationship between co-workers, and the owner’s disclosure techniques on Facebook prior to co-worker online friendships, all affect the likelihood of one accepting a co-workers friend request (Frampton & Child, 2013, p. 2261). Many theories dive into the topic of work relationships, and some even work with computer/social media relations in a work setting, but CPM talks about what boundaries co-workers set up for themselves online and in real life in terms of personal information disclosure.

         The third study used CPM as a theoretical framework in an article titled “‘To disclose or not to disclose, that is the question’’: A structural equation modeling approach to communication privacy management in e-health” by Seung-A. Annie Jin. She recruited 134 undergraduate students, and had them access an e-health website while filling out a survey. It found that in terms of e-health communication, showed that majority of users are truthful in their private health information disclosure. The study also found that users are focused on prevention of future health problems, and this was the main motivation behind truthful health disclosure online (Jin, 2012, p. 75). This study shows that disclosure motivations behind an owner’s confidant are often truthful when it comes to one’s future and health. It also is another example of a confidant not necessarily being a human, but a system or internet database instead.

            The fourth study took interviews from 136 children aged 8-17 in a Southwest summer camp, inquiring about the communication methods their parents adopted in regards to financial topics. The article is titled “Money Matters: Children's Perceptions of Parent-Child Financial Disclosure” . The interviews showed that 93% of children reported their parents openly discussing saving, spending and earning with their children. The study also found that there was a significant amount of difference in parent’s disclosure of investment information between boys and girls, with boys getting more information than girls on this topic. More girls than boys reported their parents concealing information about finances. Most children reported that their parents disclosed financial information with them to teach them good money management skills. The least amount of motivation for parent to child financial disclosure was rooted from children’s curiosity for the information (Romo & Vangelisti, 2014). This shows that disclosure to a confidant that is one’s child is much different than to a peer or friend. This shows the theory’s variability, and difficulty to generalize the ability to quantify the theory in general. It has to be done in specific relationships and specific contexts, as each disclosure partnership/ownership is different.

The final study, “Privacy Orientations as a Function of Family Communication Patterns”, was on 382 young adults in the Southwest, who performed an online questionnaire about demographic topics and the measures given in the study. The measures were conformity orientation (meaning they parents expect them to obey without question/they do not solicit permission from their parents) and conversation orientation (whether or not they disclose their private information to their parents). Then they were asked questions about privacy orientation, including seclusion, intimacy, and time needed alone, etc. The study found that, after they accounted for sex a variable, family conformity and conversation orientation affects a child’s privacy orientation and how they choose to spend their time and disclose their private information (Bridge & Schrodt, 2013). This shows that how one is brought up in terms of conformity expectations and disclosure of information to parents as a child, can affect one’s decision to disclose private information and who you disclose to as an adult, which changes boundaries of a person’s individual communication privacy management.