Mental States: A Key Point in Scam Compliance and Warning Compliance in Real Life

Xin Wen, Liang Xu, Jie Wang, Yuan Gao, Jiaming Shi, Ke Zhao, Fuyang Tao and Xiuying Qian
Additional contact information
Xin Wen: Department of Psychology and Behavioral Sciences, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310027, China
Liang Xu: Department of Psychology and Behavioral Sciences, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310027, China
Jie Wang: Department of Psychology and Behavioral Sciences, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310027, China
Yuan Gao: Department of Psychology and Behavioral Sciences, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310027, China
Jiaming Shi: Department of Psychology and Behavioral Sciences, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310027, China
Ke Zhao: Ant Group, Shanghai 200120, China
Fuyang Tao: Ant Group, Shanghai 200120, China
Xiuying Qian: Department of Psychology and Behavioral Sciences, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310027, China

IJERPH, 2022, vol. 19, issue 14, 1-16

Abstract: The internet’s convenience and anonymity have facilitated different types of covert fraud, resulting in economic, mental, and social harm to victims. Understanding why people are deceived and implementing appropriate interventions is critical for fraud reduction. Based on the Bayesian brain theory, individuals’ mental states may be a key point in scam compliance and warning compliance. Fraud victims with different mental states may construct various hypotheses and explanations about the fraud they are exposed to, causing different cognition and behavior patterns. Therefore, we first conducted a semi-structured in-depth interview with online fraud victims to investigate the individual and social factors that affect victims’ mental states. Grounded theory analysis showed five core factors influencing scam compliance: psychological traits, empirical factors, motivation, cognitive biases, and emotional imbalance. Based on our findings of psychological processes and deception’s influential factors, we then designed warnings to inform victims of fraud, particularly for those involving novel types of scams. Tested on a real-life setting, our designed warnings effectively enhanced warning compliance, allowing more fraud victims to avoid financial losses.

Keywords: online fraud; scam compliance; warning design; mental states (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/19/14/8294/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/19/14/8294/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:19:y:2022:i:14:p:8294-:d:857507

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().