The Impact of Visceral and Informational Cues on Privacy-Protective Behavior and Self-Disclosure in Online Contexts

Despite growing public awareness of data protection issues, the protection of privacy in the digital realm remains an abstract concept for many users. Vertical privacy risks — those posed by companies, platforms, or algorithms — are particularly difficult to grasp compared to horizontal risks, where information is shared between individuals (Acquisti et al., 2022; Masur et al., 2018). Calo (2012) proposes the use of visceral signals to unconsciously yet effectively draw users’ attention to privacy risks. These signals are intended to raise awareness without requiring cognitively demanding reflection. Especially in the case of abstract, vertical risks, such cues may bridge the gap between digital and real-world perception by activating familiar associations from everyday contexts. In previous research with vulnerable groups (Strathmann et al., 2025), various visceral signals — such as eyes, whispering, a recording icon, and a camera shutter sound — were tested and evaluated. Results indicated that cues based on psychological reactions (e.g., the feeling of being watched when seeing eyes) elicit strong emotional responses and are perceived positively. Moreover, there was considerable interest in multimodal approaches, which is why the planned study focuses on comparing unimodal (visual or auditory) and multimodal (visual and auditory) cues. Despite the acceptance of and enthusiasm for these visceral cues, many users retain a need for transparency and information (Strathmann et al., 2025). Theoretically, privacy statements on cookie banners should serve to provide this information. In practice, however, they are rarely embraced, as they are frequently perceived as uninformative and difficult to understand (Kulyk et al., 2018). Nevertheless, users desire information to help them contextualize visceral cues. We aim to test this by combining unimodal and multimodal cues with brief informational texts to determine whether cognitive knowledge regarding risks genuinely influences users' protective behavior. The current research aims to extend previous theoretical work with an empirical examination of the effectiveness of visceral modalities in shaping users’ perception and behavior. Overall, we therefore conclude with the following two research questions. 1. How do visceral cues influence users' self disclosure and privacy protection behavior? 2. How do informational texts on cookie banners influence users' privacy protection behavior?