My computer is infected: the role of users’ sensation seeking and domain-specific risk perceptions and risk attitudes on computer harm

Literature has traditionally shown the potentially harmful consequences of risk-taking in a variety of domains. Less scholarly attention, however, has been directed to the study of risk-taking in the computer use domain. Using scanned data from 1902 computers, we sought to analyze the potentially harmful consequences that sensation-seeking and computer use risk perceptions and attitudes had on users’ computer vulnerability. Results of the study indicated that general sensation-seeking as well as computer use risk perceptions and risk attitudes were predictive of computer harm. The general measure of sensation-seeking was predictive of both risk perceptions and risk attitudes which in turn translated into the existence of malicious software in users’ computers.