Prior Parental Mediation, Privacy Perceptions and Privacy Protection Behaviors Among Emerging Adults: Testing the Mediating Effect and its Gender Difference

Protecting online privacy is vital. Applying protection motivation theory to parental mediation research, the study examined how prior experience of parental mediation affected privacy protection behaviors (PPB). Utilizing data from 994 Chinese college freshmen, this study considered three mediation strategies (restrictive, active, and participatory learning) and found that prior experience of restrictive mediation did not predict PPB among emerging adults, whereas active mediation and participatory learning predicted PPB, both directly and indirectly via privacy concern and perceived self-efficacy. Notably, participatory learning exhibited gender-specific effects: for females, its influence was direct; for males, both direct and indirect effects were observed.