Date of Award

Spring 2026

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Science (MS)

Department

Psychology

Committee Director

Jeremiah Still

Committee Member

Xiao Yang

Committee Member

Kristin Heron

Abstract

In this cyber dependent and enabled era, understanding the role of human factors in digital security is essential. This study investigates the relationship between Big-Five personality traits and cybersecurity behaviors by examining both self-reported and stimulated behaviors in security threat scenarios. Participants completed validated questionnaires to report their personality traits, cybersecurity practices and engage in task-based stimulations to capture behaviors such as phishing detection, password creation, and response to security alerts. The study tested whether higher conscientiousness, openness, and agreeableness would be associated with stronger cybersecurity practices and smaller discrepancies between self-reported and observed behaviors. And, whether greater extraversion and neuroticism would relate to weaker practices and larger discrepancies. Personality traits accounted for modest variance in self-reported cyber hygiene but were substantially more predictive of observed secure behavior in stimulated tasks. Agreeableness and openness consistently predicted better performance, even when not reflected in self-reports. Direct comparisons revealed a persistent discrepancy between perceived and observed cybersecurity behavior, associated with both personality and prior experiences. These findings highlight the importance of combining self-report and behavioral measures and provide an empirical framework for developing more targeted and adaptive cybersecurity interventions at organizational and individual levels.

Rights

In Copyright. URI: http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/ This Item is protected by copyright and/or related rights. You are free to use this Item in any way that is permitted by the copyright and related rights legislation that applies to your use. For other uses you need to obtain permission from the rights-holder(s). 

DOI

https://doi.org/10.25777/3nsr-m227

ISBN

9798186382355

ORCID

0000-0001-9797-524X

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