Development and Validation of the Need for Privacy Scale (NFP-S)

ABSTRACTThe need for privacy has been gaining importance in various disciplines and areas of communication, including computer-mediated, interpersonal, and health communication. These disciplines require reliable measurement of the need for privacy across different contexts. We propose a theoretical concept of the need for privacy as a personality trait and develop a multi-dimensional scale. In Study 1, we developed and tested the Need for Privacy Scale (NFP-S) using exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis (German internet users, n1 = 3,278; n2 = 1,226). The results support a second-order model with three first-order factors, i.e., informational, psychological, and physical need for privacy; social need for privacy was identified to be inherent to the three other dimensions and as such not a dimension on its own. The 12-item scale was validated with regard to loneliness, online privacy concerns, sex, online data protection and online information disclosure. In Study 2, we confirmed the factorial structure with a representative sample of N = 1,000 German internet users. We validated the scale with a self-assessment of the need for privacy, offline and online privacy concerns, online privacy literacy, social media usage, online data protection and social media self-disclosure, and sociodemographics. Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).Supplementary materialSupplemental data for this article can be accessed online at https://doi.org/10.1080/19312458.2023.2246014.Notes1 We also repeated all analyses with the remaining three waves; see the OSF project [https://osf.io/wb9vx/?view_only=221bb80c882f46d188fbf6b994f59bef] for the results. In the online supplement, we numbered the waves as in the original study; what we call T2 in this article is T5 in the OSF project.Additional informationFundingThe first study was funded by a grant from the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF, Funding number: 16KIS0094) awarded to Sabine Trepte.Notes on contributorsRegine FrenerRegine Frener is a PhD candidate at the School of Communication at the University of Hohenheim, Germany. She is interested in gender studies and how it relates to privacy and self-disclosure.Jana DombrowskiJana Dombrowski is a PhD candidate at the School of Communication Science at the University of Hohenheim, Germany. Her areas of research are social media privacy and media screen time.Sabine TrepteSabine Trepte (PhD) is a professor for media psychology at the University of Hohenheim, Germany. Her research focuses online self-disclosure and privacy from a psychological perspective.