Systematic Review on Cybersecurity Risks and Behaviours:
Methodological Approaches
Eliza Oliveira
a
and Vania Baldi
b
Digital Media and Interaction Research Centre, University of Aveiro, Aveiro, Portugal
Keywords: Cybersecurity, Risk Perception, Precautionary Behaviour, Literature Review, NVivo.
Abstract: This paper presents a systematic literature review regarding risk perception and precautionary behaviour
related to cybersecurity. Objectives encompassed identifying issues related to methodological approaches, the
studies’ operationalisation and other essential topics, highlighting significant gaps to be fulfilled in future
investigations. The study included a search in the multidisciplinary databases of Science Direct, Web of
Science, and the Scientific Repositories of Open Access in Portugal, focusing on publications after 2016. A
total of nine articles were analysed. The review was developed using the Preferred Reporting Items for
Systematic Review and Meta-analysis Protocols’ research method. Also, publications were coded using the
NVivo 12 software for synthesising the results. The small number of studies considered for analysis revealed
that risk perception and precautionary behaviour concerning cybersecurity is still an under-explored study
area. Furthermore, methodological gaps are highlighted for future works. Studies in the cybersecurity field
provide a dataset for policymakers, directing efforts and predicting responses to digital technologies, making
this subject matter highly substantial.
1 INTRODUCTION
Humanity has lived an era of extraordinary success
concerning digital technological advancements,
allowing the dissemination of information, and
enabling communication worldwide (Castells, 2011;
Pinto & Cardoso, 2021). Moreover, with the
progressive evolution of digital solutions and the
democratization of electronic devices, citizens use the
Internet anytime and anywhere they wish (Baldi &
Oliveira, 2018).
However, despite contributing to interpersonal
interaction and information transmission
effectiveness, the new paradigm in information
systems and communication processes has brought
security and privacy problems within the digital
environments (Conteh & Schmick, 2021).
In this context, data are frequently forged and
defrauded, making the digital environment a constant
threat to information-sharing security (Loon, 2003).
Examples of hazards that threaten the integrity of
personal data on the Internet include phishing,
doxing, identity thief, cyberbullying, viruses,
a
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3518-3447
b
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7663-3328
surveillance and spyware (Conteh & Schmick, 2021).
Further, while everyone is exposed to several kinds of
danger, the use frequency of digital technologies
seems to be directly related to the increase of risk of
cyberattacks (Cheng, Lau, and Luk 2020).
According to Slovic (1981), the risk scenario
regarding the technologies involves the citizens’
awareness of the hazards they are exposed to. Thus,
the security of personal information is associated to
the user’s behaviour on the Internet, being Risk
Perception (RP) a predictor of the individuals’
precaution when facing risks (Assailly, 2010).
Risk perception is not a recent study area and has
been the subject of interest in different knowledge
domains, aiming to understand citizens perceptions
concerning the exposure to several hazards in society
(Slovic, 2000). Nevertheless, although a diversity of
hazards arises with the digital technologies, limited
attention has been given to RP and Precautionary
Behaviours (PB) in this area (Oliveira & Baldi, 2019).
In this paper, we update the prior work to deepen
understanding of how Risk perception and
Precautionary Behaviour regarding cybersecurity are
Oliveira, E. and Baldi, V.
Systematic Review on Cybersecur ity Risks and Behaviours: Methodological Approaches.
DOI: 10.5220/0010762600003197
In Proceedings of the 7th International Conference on Complexity, Future Information Systems and Risk (COMPLEXIS 2022), pages 49-56
ISBN: 978-989-758-565-4; ISSN: 2184-5034
Copyright
c
2022 by SCITEPRESS Science and Technology Publications, Lda. All rights reserved
49
currently being investigated (Oliveira & Baldi, 2019).
Therefore, we expand our search to 2021 to achieve
recent studies concerning these themes. In addition,
we adopted the structural methodology “PRISMA”
(Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews
and Meta-Analyses) and used the NVivo 12 software
for a systematic coding that gave rise to new
discussion topics compared to those analysed in the
previous study.
The article is organised as follows. In section two,
we present the background theory and relevant
studies. Subsequently, the methodology of this
systematic review is presented. Section 4 present the
results, and Section 5 the discussion. Finally, section
6 provides the most relevant conclusions.
2 BACKGROUND
There is no consensus in the literature regarding the
meaning of the word risk. While according to some
authors, the Latin etymology means that risk
separates us from the known to confront us with the
unknown and challenge it (Assailly, 2010; Bernstein,
1996), Mythen (2004) says that the derivations of the
term “risk” come from the Arabic word “risq”, related
to the acquisition of health and fortune. Moreover, the
risk is also related to “The actions we dare to take,
which depend on how free we are to make choices.”
(Bernstein, 1996, p. 29), introducing the subjectivity
of what is considered risky in different cultures.
Lash (2000) presents that dangers or risks, in the
risk culture, should not be understood as being
objective, but as inscribed in individualized ways of
life, defending, therefore, that the perception of risk
is an essential matter since it is subjective and is
intrinsically related to the contexts of each citizens’
lives. In this sense, Paul Slovic (2000) refers to Risk
Perception as an intuitive daily risk judgment that the
citizens rely on to evaluate typical and catastrophic
hazards. As an interdisciplinary subject of concern,
risk perception is not a recent area of knowledge
(Starr, 1969) and has been widely studied across
different fields, including psychology, social
sciences, geography and anthropology (Slovic, 2000).
Also, the past studies on risk perception have mainly
been carried out in the United States and
encompassed the proposal of a set of risk dimensions
that help identify behavioural patterns in hypothetical
situations related to the decision-making process
when facing risks (Slovic, 1981). Some of these
dimensions are the severity of consequences of the
hazard, catastrophically effect of the danger,
vulnerability face the danger, the novelty of the
hazard, and level of knowledge about the hazard.
Further, Slovics’ works were mainly directed to the
latest devices and technologies of the time, such as X-
ray, nuclear power, cars and parachutes (Slovic,
1981; 1990). Regarding the dangers associated to
digital technologies, some works are worth
mentioning. For instance, the literature shows that the
more voluntarily exposed people are to phishing, the
lower they perceived the risk of getting involved in
situations like these on the Internet. Also, the risk
perceived is reduced when positive effects are
immediate and negative consequences of an action
are delayed (Kahneman, 2011).
Huang (2010) and Garg & Camp (2012) studied
21 and 15 dangers related to the cybersecurity
domain, respectively. Higher perception of risk is
directly related to the severity of consequences of a
danger, duration of its impacts and previous accident
history involvement in the cybersecurity domain
(Huang, 2010). Equally, Garg & Camp (2012)
verified that voluntariness to danger, knowledge of
science concerning a hazard, controllability of the
danger, the newness of the danger, dread, and severity
of effects were significant predictors of risk
perception. Moreover, while people frequently
underestimate cybersecurity threats (LaRose, Rifon,
& Enbody, 2008), perceived risk is lower when
people think they control a particular cybersecurity
situation (Rhee, Ryu, and Kim, 2012).
Ng et al. (2009) verified that an individuals’
security behaviour is directly proportioned to their
risk perception regarding the specific danger, the
perception of the threat, and the effectiveness of their
capacity to solve the problem. Additionally, the
authors affirm that individuals should use specific
necessary actions to avoid security problems, such as
using strong passwords, frequently changing
passwords, and conducting regular backups.
Pattinson and Anderson (2005) presented risk
perception as a mediator in the relationship between
risk communication and risk-taking behaviour in
information security. Concerning security actions,
although college students are highly engaged in more
precautionary behaviour (for instance, using anti-
virus software), Öğütçü et al. (2016) identified that
the exposure to hazards was highest among this social
fringe. Furthermore, Mariani & Zappala (2014)
verified that self-competence was related to a positive
precautionary behaviour against attacks from a
computer virus, while Slovic, MacGregor & Kraus
(1987) affirm that the risk dimensions that predict
perceived risk are also possible predictors of
precautionary behaviour. Therefore, risk perception
and precautionary behaviour are associated.
COMPLEXIS 2022 - 7th International Conference on Complexity, Future Information Systems and Risk
50
In the following section, we will present the
methodological path to operationalising the present
systematic literature review.
3 METHODOLOGY
Systematic reviews have received credibility in the
social sciences since they offer consolidated and
unbiased information about a particular subject and is
associated with a starting inquisition (Liberati et al.,
2009; Gough et al., 2017). Thus, the primary
outcomes of this systematic review must answer the
following question: What empirical works are
available in the literature on risk perception and
precautionary behaviour regarding cybersecurity
issues, and what are the main significant gaps to be
fulfilled in future studies?
The present work was developed using the
PRISMA method, a guided protocol for a systematic
review to achieve reliable data. The PRISMA method
ensures that the systematic review is carefully
planned and explicitly documented, promoting
consistent results by the review team, accountability,
research integrity, and transparency of the completed
review (Liberati et al., 2009).
In this sense, the first step was to define the data
basis for searching the documents related to risk
perception and precautionary behaviour within the
cybersecurity domain. Considering that these subjects
run through different knowledge areas, we opted for
Web of Science and Science Direct data basis.
Furthermore, the search was also made in the
Scientific Repositories of Open Access in Portugal
(RCAAP) to find works carried out under the
Portuguese scope.
After choosing the data basis, the next step was to
determine the appropriate keywords, covering risk
perception, cybersecurity, and precautionary
behaviour. This study was carried out in May 2021
and was limited to peer-reviewed journal and
proceedings articles published from 2016 onwards
since a relevant review was published in 2015
(Quigley et al., 2015). Works that exhibit studies
related to RP or PB but not encompass the two
subjects were also accepted. However, it is worth
highlighting that all the works should approach
cybersecurity issues. Also, the works must be
published in English and present empirical studies.
The screening process comprised the exclusion of
duplicate documents. Then, after the titles and
abstracts were analysed, the articles that did not fit the
inclusion criteria were removed. Next, the papers
have been fully read for the selection of the
appropriate studies for this review. After, the
publications were read in full and coded using the
NVivo 12 software. The parameters for analysis
were: (1) methods for data collection, (2) country of
the study, (3) sample, (4) methodological approaches,
(5) inclusion of the topics in the query (i.e., RP, PB,
and Cybersecurity), (6) articles’ keywords, and (7)
cybersecurity issues addressed.
4 RESULTS
The categories in NVivo were aggregated into groups
that contain relevant topics for the analysis of results.
4.1 Overview of the Studies
As a result of the search in the previously mentioned
databases, 30 articles were found in Science Direct,
only one repeated article has been found in Web of
Science, and none was found in the RCAAP.
Furthermore, an extra article has been integrated into
this study since it complies with the inclusion criteria.
Thus, 31 research articles were considered possible to
use in this systematic review, with only nine elected
at the end of the screening process. Figure 1 shows
the PRISMA flow diagram with the screening of the
articles to integrate this study.
The main regions where the studies were carried
out included the United Kingdom and the USA, with
five and three studies conducted in these countries,
respectively. Other countries were Netherlands,
Turkey, Hong Kong, Germain, Sweden, Poland and
Spain. Among the papers, only one was published in
2016, while two studies were published in 2017, two
in 2018, two in 2019, and two in 2020. Table 1
presents the general information of the studies, with a
list of the authors, year of publication, the goal of the
study, and the main contributions of the articles.
4.2 Methods and Methodologies
Concerning the methodological approaches, the
papers present quantitative approaches, comprising
experimental and empirical studies. Eight studies
conducted online surveys, while one used a telephone
survey to collect data (Cheng et al., 2020). In
addition, participants were chosen through different
methods, with seven papers using online recruitment,
one using the selection as a sample method (Öğütçü
et al., 2016), and one using the random digit dialling
method (Cheng et al., 2020). The digital recruitment
method encompassed Toluna (Bavel et al., 2019),
recruitments by e-mail (Schaik et al., 2017; Jeske et
al., 2017; Schaik et al., 2020), recruitment services of
Systematic Review on Cybersecurity Risks and Behaviours: Methodological Approaches
51
online panels (Jansen & Shaik, 2019; Shaik et al.,
2018), and Mechanical Turk (Cain et al., 2018).
Figure 1: PRISMA Flow diagram with the screening
process and number of documents selected in each phase.
Data were collected using a psychometric
paradigm with internet users through different scales
in all studies. In this direction, none of the research
articles presented a distinct strategy for obtaining
outcomes, all using a traditional rating scale as a
metric measure in the empirical phase.
4.3 Sample
The sample was different in all articles, comprising a
minimum of 201 in the work of Van Shaik et al.
(2018) and a maximum of 2014 in the empirical study
conducted by Bavel et al. (2019). The mean age in the
Bavel et al. (2019) studies was 40.8 years, with 50.3%
of females and 40.84% with upper secondary
education. Jansen & Schaik (2019) carried out two
studies (ages between 19-76 years), being one with
1,201 individuals (50.6% females and 52.4% with
high education), and a second with a sample of 768
individuals, being 51.4% men and 52.5% with high
education. In Cain et al. (2018), the age range of the
sample was between 18-55+ years, with 142 women
and 24.63% with higher education, against an average
age of 42 years in a sample of 201 Facebook users,
characterized by 92 women and 55% with less than
fist degree in the studies of Schaik et al. (2018). In the
work of Schaik et al. (2017), the mean age of the 436
participants was 23, with 336 females. Further, Jeske
et al. (2017) conducted a study with 323 participants
with a mean age equal to 22.78 in an age range from
18-60 (74.9% women), while the works of Öğütçü et
al. (2016) included a sample with the mean age of
28.1 years old with 70.4% with high students’ degree.
Table 1: General information of the studies.
Article Goal Main results
Schaik et
al. (2020)
Check
Facebook CS
issues.
Affect is positive for
perceived benefit and
negative of perceived
ris
k
Cheng et
al. (2020)
Verify IT use
and risk to
involve in CS
issues.
Cybercrime
victimization was
inversely associated
with perceived
control, fairness, and
happiness.
Bavel et
al. (2019)
Explore the
effects of
notifications on
CS behaviour.
Coping messages
were more effective
than threat appeals in
promoting secure
online behaviou
r
Jansen &
Schaik
(2019)
Examine the
impact of fear
appeal messages
on security
behaviours
against phishing
Fear appeals have
great potential to
promote cybersecurity
behaviour.
Cain et al.
(2018)
Explore the
users’ behaviour
regarding cyber
hygiene.
Gender and age are
determinants in users’
behaviour and
knowledge regarding
cyber hygiene.
Schaik et
al. (2018)
Examined risk
perception and
precautionary
behaviour
related to CS in
Faceboo
k
.
Perception of risk was
highest for
cyberbullying and
information sharing.
Schaik et
al. (2017)
Examined risk
perception and
precautionary
b
ehaviour in CS
Risk Perception was
higher for identity
thief, keylogger and
c
y
berbull
y
in
g
.
Jeske &
Schaik
(2017)
Examined the
familiarity of
users about 16
online threats.
Three clusters of
knowledge were
labelled regarding
securit
y
behaviour.
Ögütçü et
al. (2016)
Examined levels
of awareness
toward
information
security in terms
of perception
and behaviou
r
.
Results show
significant differences
within samples and
habits of internet
usage.
Schaik et al. (2020) presents two studies, one with
63 and the other with 233 individuals. The first
sample with a mean age of 51.19 and the second with
the mean age of 52.13, both ranged from 22 to 79,
COMPLEXIS 2022 - 7th International Conference on Complexity, Future Information Systems and Risk
52
while in Cheng et al. (2020), the average was 42.18
years old, with the range among 10-65. Finally, while
the major sample of analysis encompassed random
people from the population, the sample in Shaik et al.
(2017) and Jeske et al. (2017) were university
students, and Öğütçü et al. (2016) comprised people
associated with the university environment.
4.4 Topic Trends
With the word frequency NVivo functionality, the
keywords determined by the authors in the studies
were verified, highlighting the topic trends among
articles. It shows that “Information” and “Security”
are the most frequent words the articles use as a
keyword directly relating to cybersecurity. The words
“Risk” and “Perception” appear more often than
“Precautionary”, meaning that studies are more
related to risks than to precautionary factors.
Nevertheless, the “Behaviour” (or its analogue
“Behavior”) subject emerges, showing that studies
regarding users’ behaviour are a topic of concern.
It is worth highlighting that, although studies do
not always use concrete keywords, topics were
interpreted according to the nature of the variables
studied. Thus, even if a study does not use the term
Precautionary behaviour but uses Security behaviour,
it was considered that such works included an
analysis within the precautionary online behaviour
topic of concern. Simultaneously, if a specific work
measures the perception of digital hazards, the RP
was identified as a matter of study.
Furthermore, based on the text search and word
count on NVivo, it was possible to verify the most
online security hazards addressed by the articles. We
found that the words “cyber” and “attack” appear
more frequently among articles, reflecting a broad
topic with several threats. Among these threats are
viruses, phishing, and identity thief, which had the
second higher frequency in the articles, followed by
trojan, keylogger, cookies and rogue ware, which is a
less explored subject among the papers.
5 HINTS FOR FUTURE
RESEARCH
Intending to provide a satisfactory answer to the
research question, in this section, we provide a
discussion concerning the methodological
approaches and additional topics to present gaps to be
fulfilled in future works.
Three papers selected in this review used the
Protection Motivation Theory (PMT) to fundament
their studies (Bavel et al., 2019; Jansen & Schaik,
2019; Schaik et al., 2020). The PMT attempts to
explain the cognitive processes that mediate
behaviour in the face of a threat, which may lead to
two different processes, including focusing on the
threat itself or the action against the threat (Rogers et
al., 1975). In this sense, studies of Bavel et al. (2019)
Jansen & Schaik (2019) conducted experiments with
participants, using copying and threat appeal
messages to identify security behaviour. Coping
messages were more effective than threat appeals in
promoting secure online behaviour in Bavel et al.
(2019) 's study, while, in contrast, fear appeals have
great potential to promote cybersecurity behaviour in
the works of Jansen & Schaik (2019). Schaik et al.
(2020) also found that "affection" is a positive
determinant of perceived benefit, indicating that a
risky online service could persuade someone to use
their products with an enticement strategy, increasing
the perceived benefit, leading to low perceived risk.
While these three works conducted experiments
with participants, the others had no intention to
intervene with individuals. This ups on new future
work possibilities, as intervention studies could bring
accurate information concerning precautionary
behaviour and gather knowledge of improving
peoples' awareness regarding digital technologies
(Kirlappos & Sasse, 2012).
Methodological limitations are observed as all the
works used psychometric measures to collect and
analyse data. Consequently, there is a lack of
qualitative data concerning risk perception and
precautionary behaviour in cybersecurity. This is
significant since precautionary behaviour and risk
perception are directly related to cultural factors and
social constructs (Mythen, 2004). In this sense, the
lack of qualitative measures and approaches makes it
difficult to gather subjective data regarding the
specific behaviour (Mishna et al., 2018).
To know in-depth about the nature and
characteristics of a given phenomenon and discover
the reasons for observed patterns, qualitative analyses
are necessary (Busetto, Wick, and Gumbinger, 2020).
Regarding cybersecurity, Mishna et al. (2018) state
that while quantitative analysis provides results that
can be generalised, qualitative analyses add rich
information that allows a deep understanding of cyber
aggression. Mythen (2004) presents a critique
regarding the frequent use of the psychometric
paradigm in research on risk perception by social
sciences, claiming that risk perception and security
behaviour are culturally and subjectively constructed.
Systematic Review on Cybersecurity Risks and Behaviours: Methodological Approaches
53
In this sense, RP and PB should also be analysed
through a qualitative lens, through a focus group or
interviews, which presents itself as a reliable manner
to achieve a rich understanding of the participant's
point of view (Mishna et al., 2018).
However, it is noteworthy that, to develop
comparable works, a methodological and conceptual
cohesion between academic research is necessary
(Oliveira & Baldi, 2019). In addition, inconsistencies
between definitions lead scholars to study different
phenomena under the same title, so it is essential to
reach a consensus on the definition and concept of the
studied phenomena (Olweus & Limber, 2018).
Therefore, an effort must be made to standardise the
concepts so that comparison between studies is
possible.
Since the entire world is changing its habits,
moving the daily activities from the physical world to
a digital one, substantial contributions can be
achieved by conducting a cross-cultural study. For
instance, Bavel et al. (2019) found that Polish and
Spanish individuals are the more insecure among
people from Sweden, Germany, and United
Kingdom. Also, interesting outcomes encompassed
the different security behaviours among people from
different nationalities, indicating that the decision-
making process changes across countries (Bavel et
al., 2019). In addition, Jeske et al. (2017) found
differences in the familiarity with cyber-threats
between people from the UK and the US, with the last
one presenting more informed about phishing and
social engineering. Similarly, Schaik et al. (2017)
showed that university students from the UK perceive
risks differently from the US. Thus, cross-cultural
studies can bring valuable information for creating
public policy cohesion in European countries.
Age is another topic of attention. Samples with a
wide range of ages are more likely to identify
disparities in people's behaviours in different age
groups, making it possible to compare opinions and
behaviours between several fringes. For example,
Ögütçü et al. (2016) found that college students seem
to be the most at-risk group, probably due to higher
intense and frequent use of the Internet, especially
social media. Bavel et al. (2019) affirm that age had a
significant impact on the probability of suffering a
cyberattack: "the older the participant, the more
securely he or she navigated through the mock
purchasing process." (p. 35). Also, their outcomes
suggest that older adults are more vulnerable than
younger adults to phishing attacks but less vulnerable
to other cyber threats. Furthermore, both younger and
older adults are likely to modify their security
behaviours when following a warning of some kind
(Bavel et al., 2019), although older adults tend to
generally behave more securely than younger users
on the Internet (Cain et al., 2018). This finding was
unexpected since younger people usually have higher
know-how about cybersecurity (Ögütçü et al., 2016).
Considering the importance of comparable data
across ages to implement more effective public and
contextual policies in different environments (e.g.,
universities, e-learning, social media, online
banking), the Governmental organisations, research
institutions, and the industry would benefit from
studies encompassing individuals' security behaviour
on Internet across several ages. However, studies that
focus on a restricted social fringe can introduce
specific and more profound knowledge regarding the
studied population, being also relevant.
Regarding the perception of risk, Schaik et al.
(2017; 2018) found that the hazards/activities judged
to be most risky on Facebook were cyberbullying and
failing to receive login notifications about the user.
Additionally, it was identified that cyberbullying had
elevated scores on general risk perception
measurement (Schaik et al., 2017). Hence,
considering that cyberbullying had the higher score
among other cyber threats, has been widely studied
and has a high prevalence in many countries
(European Parliament, 2016), future works should
involve online aggressions, such as cyber-
harassment, hate speech, and cyber-stalking, to verify
RP and PB regarding these threats.
The relevance of studying cybersecurity is related
to the damage caused by cyberattacks at a national
and international level (Cheng et al., 2020). Hallman
et al. (2020) present that the organisations and
citizens suffer each day more with cyberattacks,
giving rise to significant financial losses in several
countries. Cybersecurity is, therefore, becoming
critical to ensure the safety of humans and societies
(Omerovic et al., 2019). In this regard, studies in the
cybersecurity domain could help gather knowledge
concerning human behaviour on the Internet, which
helps to understand adequate security training under
a specific population or context. People trained in
cyber-hygiene or cybersecurity have higher
precautionary behaviours, indicating a good strategy
to prevent cyberattacks (Cain et al., 2018; Mishna et
al., 2018). In this sense, longitudinal works could be
helpful to verify the effectiveness of specific training
in the cybersecurity field (Jansen & Schaik, 2019).
Finally, it is suggested more studies on RP and PB in
cybersecurity domain, especially in the Portuguese
context, which must be deposited in national
databases to enrich nationalised scientific data.
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54
6 CONCLUSIONS
This paper presents a systematic review of risk
perception and precautionary behaviour facing
cybersecurity threats. We expanded on prior work to
understand how Risk perception and Precautionary
Behaviour regarding cybersecurity are currently
being studied. To provide reliable answers to the
research question, it was realized with the PRISMA
method and NVivo software. Although risk
perception is a long-time study area, and a plethora of
threats frequently emerge, a small number of works
revealed that RP and PB regarding cybersecurity are
still under-explored.
The articles’ attention is on the security of
personal information, being other cyber-threats, such
as sexting, cyber-harassment and cyberbullying, not
frequently addressed. In this sense, future works
should encompass these topics in their surveys or
other measurement data collection. Furthermore,
studies with practical experiments are also
encouraged since they could bring accurate
information concerning precautionary behaviour,
elaborating practical training to better use the
Information and Communication Technologies.
Finally, in the current scenario, social networks offer
new opportunities for sociability (Pinto & Cardoso,
2021) and communication being, however, necessary
to pay attention to cybersecurity issues to promote
interaction in a safe digital environment. Therefore,
studies in RP and PB contribute to achieving insights
to produce more secure commercial products, such as
better protective software and hardware. Further,
studies in the RP and PB area provide relevant
information for policymakers to build efficient
preventive and coping strategies, helping to predict
public responses to technologies (Slovic, 1981;
Fischhoff et al., 1978), making the subject matter in
this review highly important.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This research was supported by the Portuguese
Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT)
through the FCT fellowship 2020.04575.BD.
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