Development and Validation of a Security and Privacy Social Desirability Scale for End Users

Learn about the development and validation of a specialized social desirability scale for security and privacy research in this 11-minute conference presentation from SOUPS 2025. Explore how researchers at the University of Bonn addressed the challenge of social desirability bias in usable security and privacy studies, where participants may provide answers they believe researchers want to hear rather than their true opinions. Discover the creation of the 13-item Security and Privacy Social Desirability Scale (SP-SDS) through comprehensive validation studies involving 1,167 participants, and understand how this specialized scale correlates with established general social desirability measures while capturing distinct aspects of security and privacy behavior perception. Examine findings from a representative US sample of 867 participants without computer science backgrounds that establish baseline measurements for social desirability perceptions in security behaviors like password reuse. Gain insights into the practical applications of this validated scale for improving the reliability of human-subjects research in sensitive security and privacy topics, including digital abuse experiences and surveillance opinions, along with specific recommendations for implementing SP-SDS in usable security and privacy studies.