# Individual Differences in Psychological Stress Associated with Data Breach Experiences
## 3 Results
### Correlational Analyses  
As expected, the IES-R scores were positively correlated with the DBSI scores, \(r(523)=0.24\), \(p<0.001\), as more invasive and consequential data breaches were associated with higher stress. There were similar correlations between the DBSI scores and each of the IES-R subscales (for the intrusion subscale, \(r=0.22\), \(p<0.001\); for the avoidance subscale, \(r=0.22\), \(p<0.001\); for the hypervigilance subscale, \(r=0.19\), \(p<0.001\)). There was no reason to expect that DBSI scores would be correlated with the psychological measures (negative emotionality scores, GAD-7 scores, and PSWQ scores), as the severity of a participant's data breach incident should be unrelated to their trait levels of negative emotionality, anxiety, and propensity to worry. Consistent with this expectation, none of these correlations were statistically significant (\(r=0.04\), \(0.08\), and \(0.03\), respectively; all \(p>0.05\)).  
\begin{table}
\begin{tabular}{c c c c c c c} \hline \hline  & **Total Sample** & **Men** & **Women** & & & \\ \hline  & **Mean (SD)** & **Mean (SD)** & **Mean (SD)** & \(t\) & \(p\) & \(ES\) \\ \hline
**Impact of Events Scale—R** & & & & & & \\ Total score & 15.36 (13.28) & 12.30 (10.22) & 17.09 (14.46) & 4.42 & \(<\)0.001 & 0.37 \\ Intrusion & 4.40 (5.48) & 3.18 (4.26) & 5.09 (5.95) & 4.25 & \(<\)0.001 & 0.35 \\ Avoidance & 7.17 (5.68) & 6.37 (4.87) & 7.63 (6.04) & 2.61 & 0.009 & 0.22 \\ Hyperarousal & 3.79 (4.04) & 2.76 (2.93) & 4.37 (4.44) & 5.01 & \(<\)0.001 & 0.41 \\
**Psychological Measures** & & & & & & \\ Negative emotionality & 37.81 (3.62) & 37.41 (3.19) & 38.04 (3.83) & 1.93 & 0.055 & 0.18 \\ PSWQ & 46.81 (9.71) & 43.68 (9.45) & 48.60 (9.41) & 5.75 & \(<\)0.001 & 0.52 \\ GAD-7 & & 13.26 (5.58) & 11.81 (4.92) & 14.09 (5.77) & 4.79 & \(<\)0.001 & 0.42 \\
**Digital Security Measures** & & & & & & \\ Digital security practices & 4.27 (1.48) & 4.60 (1.42) & 4.09 (1.48) & 3.87 & \(<\)0.001 & 0.35 \\ Digital security expertise & 4.28 (1.12) & 4.75 (1.02) & 4.02 (1.09) & 7.50 & \(<\)0.001 & 0.68 \\ Digital threat awareness & 4.03 (0.84) & 4.20 (0.74) & 3.93 (0.87) & 3.54 & \(<\)0.001 & 0.32 \\ Post-DB security & 22.03 (7.03) & 21.46 (7.01) & 22.36 (7.03) & 1.41 & 0.160 & 0.13 \\ \hline \hline  & & Negative emotionality = negative emotionality scale of the Big Five Inventory-2; PSWQ = Penn State Worry Questionnaire; GAD-7 = Generalized Anxiety Disorder-7; DB = data breach; \(ES=\) [PERSON]’s \(d\). \\ \hline \hline \end{tabular}
\end{table}
Table 4: Comparisons between men and women on the self-report measures.  
\begin{table}
\begin{tabular}{c c c} \hline \hline
**Data Breach Type** & \(N\) & **\%** \\ \hline Instant messages intercepted & 31 & 5.9 \\ Email hacked & 168 & 32.0 \\ Social media account hacked & 175 & 33.3 \\ Theft of personal information & 157 & 29.9 \\ Theft of personal photos & 23 & 6.2 \\ Password compromised & 151 & 28.8 \\ Debit card breach & 37 & 9.3 \\ Credit card breach & 119 & 29.8 \\
3 rd party account linked to & 21 & 5.3 \\ credit card (e.g., Amazon) & 18 & 4.5 \\ Computer/phone accessed & 12 & 2.3 \\ GPS tracking & 1 & 0.3 \\ Gaming account breach & 15 & 3.8 \\ \hline \hline \end{tabular}
\end{table}
Table 5: Frequencies of data breach incidents (\(N=525\)).  
Table 6 shows the correlations between the IES-R scores and the psychological measures. As expected, there were positive correlations between the IES-R scores and negative emotionality scores (\(r\) = 0.12), PSWQ scores (\(r\) = 0.28), and GAD-7 scores (\(r\) = 0.32), which indicated that participants with higher scores on these measures tended to have higher IES-R scores. Table 7 shows the correlations between IES-R scores and the digital security ratings. Digital security expertise was negatively correlated with IES-R scores, but the magnitude of the correlation (\(r\) = \(-\)0.13) reflected only a weak association. Post-data breach security was positively correlated with IES-R scores (\(r\) = 0.18), with higher IES-R scores associated with greater post-data breach security.