Browsing by Person "Trepte, Sabine"

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Berufsfelder der Medienpsychologie
(2023) Weber, Silvana; Stein, Jan-Philipp; Trepte, Sabine; Reinecke, Leonard; Gimmler, Roland; Gleich, Uli; Winter, Stephan; Frischlich, Lena; Krämer, Nicole; Appel, Markus; Hutmacher, Fabian; Mengelkamp, Christoph; Institut für Kommunikationswissenschaft (540)
There are many professions in which the topic of media psychology is addressed. However, in contrast to the interest, these professions are not yet clearly defined, and there are no studies available on entry-level opportunities or job descriptions. Only rarely does the job title media psychologist exist. Nevertheless, our conversations with companies show that the subject is in high demand in many industries and business sectors. There is a wide range of occupational fields in which media psychology is relevant; in fact, whenever it is a matter of describing, explaining, and predicting the emotional, cognitive, and behavioral processes surrounding media use. Media psychology can make valuable contributions in these areas: marketing, media research, communication management, management consulting, user experience and content management, media education and science. The description of the occupational fields in this publication is based on typical tasks and assignments. After a definition of the respective occupational field, we describe what the individual occupational fields entail, which assignments or tasks are handled and, finally, in which companies and institutions they can be found.
Communicating climate change : how proximising climate change and global identity predict engagement
(2018) Loy, Laura Sophia; Trepte, Sabine
The majority of scientists express an urgent need to limit climate change in order to ensure sustainable development, but our societies are not reacting decisively enough to achieve this goal. My research aims to understand how news about climate change can be communicated to convey scientific knowledge and support climate protection. Proximising climate change by focussing on local instead of global or remote consequences has been recommended as a promising communication strategy. The reasoning is that many people seem to perceive climate change as a phenomenon that affects mainly other people in far-off places (i.e., psychological socio-spatial distance). Proximising might bring climate change closer. However, the recommendation still lacked convincing empirical evidence. Thus, my research investigated the communication of proximity vs. distance in news coverage. Specifically, I examined the process assumed to be behind proximising effects, namely a reduction of the psychological socio-spatial distance of climate change, which might increase issue relevance and in turn promote climate protective behaviour and climate change knowledge. In Study 1 (N = 498), people were asked to what extent the news communicated climate change as something affecting mainly other people in distant locations. The more they perceived news communication as socio-spatially distant, the higher their psychological socio-spatial distance of climate change and the lower relevance they attributed to the issue. Perceived communicated socio-spatial distance was indirectly and negatively related with climate protective behavioural knowledge through higher psychological socio-spatial distance. Study 2 (N = 99) found no evidence that communicating socio-spatial proximity vs. distance of climate change in a news text influences psychological socio-spatial distance, relevance attributed to the news text, climate protective behaviour, and climate change knowledge. However, the test power was not sufficient to detect small effect sizes. In Study 3 (N = 508), proximising climate change in a news text decreased the psychological socio-spatial distance of climate change and indirectly and positively predicted climate protective behaviour as well as climate change knowledge through lower psychological socio-spatial distance and higher relevance attribution. While the indirect relations were small, stronger relations might arise if people repeatedly receive local information. I thus suggest that it is worthwhile to complement news about global climate change with reports about regional impacts. As a second objective, I aimed to illuminate whether the concept of a global identity helps to explain why proximising might not always be necessary or useful. I assumed that the more people identify with people all over the world, the more relevant they evaluate climate change to be and the more they are motivated to take climate protective action and acquire climate change knowledge. Moreover, I supposed that people with a strong global identity might evaluate climate change as relevant regardless of whether they perceive that the consequences mainly affect other people in distant places. In other words, a global identity might bridge the psychological socio-spatial distance of climate change. In Study 1, global identity positively predicted the relevance attributed to climate change and climate protective behaviour, as well as climate change knowledge indirectly through relevance attribution. In Study 2, the global identity dimension of self-investment positively predicted climate protective behaviour. However, global identity did not bridge the psychological socio-spatial distance of climate change in either study. I further reasoned that the negative relation between psychological socio-spatial distance and relevance attribution might be weaker if global identity is made salient. In other words, a salient global identity might bridge the psychological socio-spatial distance of climate change. In Study 3, before reading the news text, participants watched either a control video or a video showing a man dancing with people all over the world, which communicated a feeling of connectedness. While participants who received the control video evaluated the news text as less relevant as their psychological socio-spatial distance of climate change increased, there was no such relation among participants who received the connectedness video. Moreover, communicated proximity vs. distance in the news text did not indirectly predict climate protective behaviour and climate change knowledge in the latter group. This suggests that communicating connectedness might be a way to bridge the distance of climate change communication and render issues that are perceived as affecting mainly other people in far-off locations more relevant to recipients.
Cultural differences in social media use, privacy, and self-disclosure : research report on a multicultural study
(2016) Masur, Philipp K.; Trepte, Sabine
This research report presents comparative results from five nations (United States of America, United Kingdom, Germany, the Netherlands, and China) with regard to social media use, self-disclosure, privacy perceptions and attitudes, and privacy behavior in online environments. The data stemmed from an online survey that was conducted from November, 2011, to December, 2011. Across all five nations, N = 1,800 participants completed the survey. The findings suggest that a broad differentiation between Western and Eastern cultures only partly accounted for differences in social media use and privacy behavior. Rather, the results of this report suggest that European countries (United Kingdom, Germany, and the Netherlands) share similar privacy perceptions and show similar behavioral patterns. Non-European cultures (the USA and China) on the other hand, use social media differently. Participants from European countries had generally smaller audiences on social network sites and microblogging platforms, tended to limit the visibility of their postings and profile information more, and used more privacy settings to safeguard their privacy. In particular, German social media users seemed to be guarded, protective, and rather reluctant to participate in online communication. Users from the US, on the other hand, rated privacy-related behavior as less risky and were hence less likely to imply sophisticated privacy strategies. Apart from these findings, the report also shows that there are more commonalities than differences. People from all five countries think that it is important to protect privacy. Most users consciously decides what to share and what not to share. Accordingly, social media users do not always share intimate and detailed information about their lives.
A gendered perspective on online privacy and self-disclosure
(2024) Frener, Regine; Trepte, Sabine
In research on online privacy and self-disclosure, gender is commonly included as a potentially predictive variable. The results are heterogeneous and sometimes controversial; explanations are often lacking or based on stereotypical assumptions. With this dissertation, I seek to provide a gender-focused perspective on online privacy and self-disclosure by taking a closer look at gender effects in privacy-related outcomes, studying the implementation of gender as a research variable, and investigating how gender is related to people’s inherent need for privacy. To this end, I present a short introduction in the first chapter, followed by four publications: a book chapter on privacy and gender (Study 1), a systematic literature review (Study 2), an empirical investigation of gender effects in privacy behavior (Study 3), and the development of the Need for Privacy Scale (NFP-S; Study 4). In Study 1, the book chapter, I summarize key theoretical advancements in gender and privacy research in line with the feminist movement. Further, empirical findings on gender disparities are presented from a communication science perspective. I discuss the ongoing gender-based digital divide as well as risks associated with automatic gender categorization. Lastly, I address the problems of conceptualizing gender as a binary, static variable, and propose alternative perspectives for more equitable treatment. In Study 2, my co-author Prof. Dr. Sabine Trepte and I examine how scholars in the field of online privacy incorporate gender into their research. For n = 107 articles reporting gender effects (or a lack thereof), we assess whether gender theory is included, to what extent it is referred to, and what function it serves. The results show that in most studies, gender is undertheorized, resulting in reduced explanatory power and the risk of gender essentialism. To meet the need for gender theorization in online privacy research we identified in Study 2, I present an empirical investigation of the social web gendered privacy model (Thelwall, 2011) in Study 3. The model aims to link gender differences in online privacy concerns, data protection behavior and online self-disclosure and explain them via gender differences in offline factors. Using longitudinal data (n = 1,043), I found partial support for the relationships between the privacy-related variables as well as for the transfer from offline to online contexts. The expected gender differences did not arise consistently, which challenges the model’s claim that women constitute an especially vulnerable population regarding social media usage. To offer added value for the broader field of privacy-related research, my co-authors Jana Dombrowski and Prof. Dr. Sabine Trepte and I present the Need for Privacy Scale (NFP-S) in Study 4. The NFP-S is a concise measure of the need for privacy as a personality trait, developed to be applied in any context. Against the theoretical backdrop of Burgoon’s (1982) privacy dimensions, we propose a second-order model with informational, psychological, and physical need for privacy as the first-order factors. In two large-scale surveys (Study 1: n1 = 3,278; n2 = 1,226; Study 2: N = 1,000), the scale was validated with regard to relevant personality traits, privacy-related cognitive criteria and behaviors as well as socio-demographic variables. With the goal of disentangling (biological) sex and gender, we include self-assessed femininity and masculinity. We find that congruity between participants’ perception of their femininity/masculinity and their sex is related to a higher need for privacy. In the overall discussion, I combine insights from the studies, provide ideas for future research, and offer societal and practical implications. Taken together, the four studies contribute to the field of online privacy by emphasizing the psychological perspective of gender as a socially constructed, multifaceted, and dynamic construct. Adopting this view is desirable for privacy researchers, as it helps to better understand privacy-related attitudes and decision-making, hence increasing overall validity. Furthermore, a differentiated understanding of gender is needed to prevent oversimplifications and stereotyping and to promote ethical and fair research.
News endorser influence in social media
(2020) Teutsch, Doris; Trepte, Sabine
Social networking sites have become an online realm where users are exposed to news about current affairs. People mainly encounter news incidentally because they are re-distributed by users whom they befriended or follow on social media platforms. In my dissertation project, I draw on shared reality theory in order to examine the question of how the relationship to the news endorser, the person who shares news content, determines social influence on opinion formation about shared news. The shared reality theory posits that people strive to achieve socially shared beliefs about any object and topic because of the fundamental epistemic need to establish what is real. Social verification of beliefs in interpersonal communication renders uncertain and ambiguous individual perceptions as valid and objectively true. However, reliable social verification may be provided only by others who are regarded as epistemic authority, in other words as someone whose judgment one can trust. People assign epistemic authority particularly to socially close others, such as friends and family, or to members of their in-group. I inferred from this that people should be influenced by the view of a socially close news endorser when forming an opinion about shared news content but not by the view of a socially distant news endorser. In Study 1, a laboratory experiment (N = 226), I manipulated a female news endorser’s social closeness by presenting her as an in-group or out-group member. Participants’ opinion and memory of a news article were not affected by the news endorser’s opinion in either of the conditions. I concluded that the news article did not elicit motivation to strive for shared reality because participants were confident about their own judgment. Therefore, they did not rely on the news endorser’s view when forming an opinion about the news topic. Moreover, the results revealed that participants had stronger trust in the news endorser when she expressed a positive (vs. negative) opinion about the news topic, while social closeness to the news endorser did not predict trust. On the one hand, this is in line with the social norm of sharing positive thoughts and experiences on social networking sites: adherence to the positivity norm results in more favorable social ratings. On the other hand, my findings indicate that participants generally had a positive opinion about the topic of the stimulus article and thus had more trust in news endorsers who expressed a similar opinion. In Study 2, an online experiment (N = 1, 116), I exposed participants to a news post by a relational close vs. relational distant news endorser by having them name a close or distant actual Facebook friend. There was a small influence of the news endorser’s opinion on participants’ thought and opinion valence irrespective of whether the news endorser was a close or distant friend. The finding was surprising, particularly because participants reported stronger trust in the view of the close friend than in the view of a distant friend. I concluded that in light of an ambiguity eliciting news article, people may even rely on the views of less trustworthy news endorsers in order to establish a socially shared and, therefore, valid opinion about a news topic. Drawing on shared reality theory, I hypothesized that social influence on opinion formation is mediated by news endorser congruent responses to a news post. The results indicated a tendency for the proposed indirect relation however, the effect size was small and the sample in Study 2 was not large enough to provide the necessary statistical power to detect the mediation. In conclusion, the results of my empirical studies provide first insights regarding the conditions under which a single news endorser influences opinion formation about news shared on social networking sites. I found limited support for shared reality creation as underlying mechanism of such social influence. Thus, my work contributes to the understanding of social influence on news perception happening in social networking sites and proposes theoretical refinements to shared reality theory. I suggest that future research should focus on the role of social and affiliative motivation for social influences on opinion formation about news shared on social networking sites.
Privacy, self-disclosure, social support, and social network site use : research report of a three-year panel study
(2013) Trepte, Sabine; Dienlin, Tobias; Reinecke, Leonard
This research report presents data from a study conducted in Germany based on a 3-year panel design. From October 2009 to April 2012, five waves of data collection were established. N = 327 participants from a convenience sample gave answers to questions regarding media use, privacy behaviors, well-being, social support, authenticity, and specific online experiences with a particular emphasis on social network sites (SNSs). It was found that across the 3 years of the study, people increasingly gained online social capital, developed a greater need for privacy, started to disclose more personal information online, and continually spent more time on SNSs. At the same time, people's willingness to disclose information in offline settings as well as their risk assessment of SNSs significantly decreased over time. Furthermore, frequent users of SNSs had more online social capital than less frequent users, disclosed more personal information online, knew more ways to restrict the access to their profiles, and were more authentic in their online profiles. People who had a higher need for privacy were less satisfied with their lives, less authentic in both their personal relationships and their online profiles, and generally showed more negative effects on different psychological variables. Respondents who had more online social capital also reported having more general positive affect and more offline social support. In the research report, further results are reported: Each variable is presented both individually and in context with other measures. The study is the first longitudinal study on online privacy and as such the first to be able to report mutual causalities between online experiences and privacy behaviors.
The psychology of privacy: Analyzing processes of media use and interpersonal communication
(2017) Dienlin, Tobias; Trepte, Sabine
What is the psychology of privacy? How do people perceive privacy? Why do people disclose personal information on the Internet, and what does this reveal about our their personalities? With four studies, this cumulative dissertation discusses potential answers to these questions. Study 1 (“The Privacy Process Model”) proposes a new privacy theory, the so-called Privacy Process Model (PPM). The PPM states that privacy consists of three major elements: the privacy context, the privacy perception, and the privacy behavior. In order to balance the three elements people constantly engage in a privacy regulation process, which can be either explicit/conscious or implicit/subconscious. Through concrete examples of new digital media, several implications of the PPM are demonstrated. Study 2 (“Is the Privacy Paradox a Relic of the Past?”), which is co-authored by Prof. Dr. Sabine Trepte, analyzes the privacy paradox through the results of an online questionnaire with 579 respondents from Germany. By adopting a theory of planned behavior-based approach, the results showed that self-disclosure could be explained by privacy intentions, privacy attitudes, and privacy concerns. These findings could be generalized for three different privacy dimensions: informational, social, and psychological privacy behaviors. Altogether, Study 2 therefore suggests that the privacy paradox does not exist. Study 3 (“An Extended Privacy Calculus Model for SNSs”), co-authored by Prof. Dr. Miriam J. Metzger, builds upon the results of Study 2 and investigates whether psychological antecedents can explain not only online self-disclosure but also online self-withdrawal. Using a privacy calculus-based approach, the study analyzes data from a U.S.-representative online sample with 1,156 respondents. The results showed that self-disclosure could be explained both by privacy concerns and expected benefits. In addition, self-withdrawal could also be predicted by both privacy concerns and privacy self-efficacy. In conclusion, Study 3 demonstrates that perceived benefits, privacy self-efficacy, and privacy concerns together predict both online self-disclosure and online self-withdrawal. Study 4 (“Predicting the Desire for Privacy”), also co-authored by Miriam J. Metzger, analyzes the relationship between the desire for privacy and different facets of personality. In Study 4a, an online questionnaire with 296 respondents was conducted and in Study 4b, a laboratory experiment with 87 participants was run. The results of the questionnaire showed several significant relationships: For example, respondents who reported lacking integrity and being more shy, less anxious, and more risk averse were all more likely to desire privacy. The experiment showed a statistical trend that participants who had written an essay about past negative behaviors were more likely to express an increased desire for privacy from other people; in addition, an implicit association test (IAT) showed that participants whose IAT results implied higher lack of integrity also desired more privacy from government surveillance. In conclusion, the results evidence that the desire for privacy relates with several aspects of personality and, notably, also with personal integrity. In the overarching discussion, the results of the aforementioned studies are combined in order to provide an updated picture of privacy. This picture suggests that online self-disclosure is not paradoxical but explainable. Being able to understand online privacy behaviors is important; however, this is not only because the Internet has paramount importance in social and professional contexts, but also because people’s desire for privacy can reveal central aspects of personality, such as one’s own personal integrity. Finally, several societal implications are discussed. It is argued that modern societies should try to design new cultural artifacts about privacy, update old and obsolete behavioral patterns with regard to privacy, foster a better understanding of the conceptual nature of privacy, work toward new and more protective privacy laws, and aim to leverage overall privacy literacy.
Vom Glauben, Berge versetzen zu können : subjektive Beurteilung von Medienqualität und Selbstwirksamkeit als Wegbereiter politischen Wissens
(2016) Schmitt, Josephine B.; Trepte, Sabine
The Internet has become a significant source for political information especially for younger generations. However, the evaluation and selection of relevant information becomes increasingly difficult as a growing number of diverse sources and content are available. Based on this observation, the present study aims to get to the bottom of the questions (1) how adolescents navigate through the vast amount of available information on the Internet (i.e., evaluation and selection of information sources) and (2) how they acquire political knowledge. More precisely the study analyzes which psychological factors contribute to adolescents’ political learning from online information sources and how these processes may be supported by media literacy programs in school. The book draws from and connects different lines of existing theoretical and empirical research: studies on perceived information quality (Wolling, 2009), social-cognitive theory (Bandura, 1986; Niemi, Craig, & Mattei, 1991) as well as research from learning psychology (e.g., Salomon, 1984). I propose that perceived information quality, media self-efficacy, internal political efficacy, and political knowledge should be understood as consecutively linked. To address the mentioned questions, I conducted a three-wave panel study with adolescents (9th to 13th grade). Moreover, a subsample participated in a media literacy intervention that took part before the second wave. Results demonstrate that perceived information quality of online news sources influences media self-efficacy, which, in turn, is related to internal political efficacy. Furthermore, internal political efficacy is being shown to positively influence political knowledge. Perceived information quality engenders trust in an individual’s media-related and political abilities, which leads to a more successful processing of political information among young adults. However, results regarding the effectiveness of the media literacy intervention are mixed. I found no direct effect of the media literacy intervention, nevertheless, a significant improvement in knowledge of the experimental group may indicate some indirect effects. All in all, these findings underline the importance of analyzing not only news media exposure but also perceived information quality as a predictor of political knowledge. Moreover, the results shed some light on the mediating role of media self-efficacy and political efficacy in the context of political knowledge acquisition. It can be concluded that not only exposure to qualitatively good sources for political information leads to an increase in political knowledge but also giving young adults the feeling that they are using sources of high quality.