Gender Differences in Risk Perception of Trust and Bias in Cyberspace

This research investigated risk perception related to trust and bias in cyberspace under levels of cognitive risks. It was hypothesized that risk perception in cyberspace is different by gender and influenced by trust-bias and fear-privacy factors. Based on Kahneman's and Tversky's Prospect Theory, the trust-bias risk quadrants determine how an individual will perceive usage of cyberspace with high or low trust; high or low bias; high or low fear; and high or low privacy behavior. This research sought to mitigate the perception of risks in gender while performing certain online activities. The goal of the research is to raise awareness of the users' experiences and practices concerning risky and safer use of the internet, and promote a safer atmosphere for users of cyberspace. The researcher designed and implemented instruments that consisted of three stages. The first stage termed pre-trust and bias questions were refined into two instruments with 26 fear and 28 privacy questions based on a five-point Likert scale. The two instruments were aggregated using an exploratory factor analysis. The second stage was the development of risk bias-trust questionnaire RBTQ scenario instrument used to capture levels of trust and bias. After completing the two stages, the participants used a computer scale to record their levels of trust-bias for the four RBTQ scenarios. The results of the RBTQ were combined with the fear and privacy instrument data. Two analyses were conducted (correlation analysis and ANOVA) that investigated 1) relationship strengths and 2) differences in gender across each risk quadrant. The results revealed women are more comfortable using cyberspace casually for activities such as email, social media, and sharing some personal information online. The results also revealed that males were found to distrust certain activities online, such as buying a product online from a foreign seller in fear of not being trustworthy. The outcome of this research may contribute in designing better online interface and may improve user safety in cyberspace.