A Meta-Analysis of Studies on Protection Motivation Theory and Information Security Behaviour

Individuals' willingness to take security precautions is imperative to their own information security and the information security of the organizations they work within. This paper presents a meta-analysis of the protection motivation theory (PMT) to assess how its efficacy is influenced by the information security behavior it is applied to. It investigates if the PMT explains information security behavior better if: 1) The behavior is voluntary? 2) The threat and coping method is concrete or specific? 3) The information security threat is directed to the person itself? Synthesized data from 28 surveys suggests that the answers to all three questions are yes. Weighted mean correlation coefficients are on average 0.03 higher for voluntary behavior than mandatory behavior, 0.05 higher for specific behaviors than studies of general behaviors, 0.08 higher to threat appraisal when the threat targets the individual person instead of the person's organization or someone else.