Monica T. Whitty

University of Warwick · Warwick Manufacturing Group

Purpose The current advancements in technologies and the internet industry provide users with many innovative digital devices for entertainment, communication and trade. However, simultaneous development and the rising sophistication of cybercrimes bring new challenges. Micro businesses use technology like how people use it at home, but face higher...

This research examined the lives of Australian employees who moved to work from home during COVID-19. Taking a unique approach to cybersecurity, we sought to gain insights into the intermingling of individuals’ personal lives and technology to inform policies and educational programmes. The study employed interpretative phenomenological analysis to...

IP theft insiders continue to pose threats to organizations, which can lead to large financial losses and reputational harm. This paper examines IP insider threat in a novel way by combining the methods of Grounded Theory and Behavior Sequence Analysis. Novel socio-technical variables identified in our study included IP theft via photographs rather...

This chapter considers whether or not the coronavirus pandemic caused an increase in the number of consumer scam victims and if the pandemic changed the landscape for online consumer scam victimisation. It does so by first, considering the history of scams, in general, and providing a taxonomy of consumer scams. It then considers the substantial in...

Online romance scams defraud dating website users of large amounts of money and inflict serious psychological harm. Victims of these scams often blame themselves for their losses and are blamed by others. We consider whether victims actually do share responsibility with the scammer for their losses. Three sorts of cases are particularly relevant: (...

Online romance scams are a prevalent form of massmarketing fraud in the West, and yet few studies have presented data-driven responses to this problem. In this type of scam, fraudsters craft fake profiles and manually interact with their victims. Because of the characteristics of this type of fraud and of how dating sites operate, traditional detec...

Online romance scams are a prevalent form of mass-marketing fraud in the West, and yet few studies have addressed the technical or data-driven responses to this problem. In this type of scam, fraudsters craft fake profiles and manually interact with their victims. Because of the characteristics of this type of fraud and of how dating sites operate,...

Purpose This paper examines predictors (personality, belief systems, expertise and response time) of detecting online romance scams. Design/methodology/approach The online study asked 261 participants to rate whether a profile was a scam or a genuine profile. Participants were also asked to complete a personality inventory, belief scales, and de...

Purpose This paper develops a theoretical framework to predict susceptibility to cyber-fraud victimhood. Design/methodology/approach A survey was constructed to examine whether personality, socio-demographic characteristics, and online routine activities predicted one-off and repeat victimhood of cyber-fraud. Overall, 11,780 participants complet...

This paper sets out 99 case studies of insider attacks that took place in the UK. The study involved interviewing investigators, heads of security, information technologists, law enforcement, security officers, human resource managers, line managers, and coworkers who knew the insider. The analysis elucidates how to identify insiders and pathways t...

This paper presents an analysis of online dating fraud’s geography. Working with real romance scammer dating profiles collected from both proxied and direct connections, we analyse geographic patterns in the targeting and distinct characteristics of dating fraud from different countries, revealing several strong markers indicative of particular nat...

The online dating romance scam is an Advance Fee Fraud, typically conducted by international criminal groups via online dating sites and social networking sites. This type of mass-marketing fraud (MMF) is the most frequently reported type of MMF in most Western countries. This study examined the psychological characteristics of romance scam victims...

Mass-marketing frauds (MMFs) are on the increase. Given the amount of monies lost and the psychological impact of MMFs there is an urgent need to develop new and effective methods to prevent more of these crimes. This paper reports the early planning of automated methods our interdisciplinary team are developing to prevent and detect MMF. Important...

Researchers have questioned whether there is a relationship between personality and patterns of online self-presentation. This paper examined, more specifically, whether personality predicts profile choices as well as image choice behaviour on two different SNSs: Twitter and Facebook. We found that personality does, to some extent, predict choices...

Ever since the early days of the Internet, men and women have been logging on to search for love. During this time there was much debate over whether ‘real’ relationships could be formed with ‘strangers’ online or whether instead these relationships were meaningless and potentially psychologically unhealthy. Theories such as the Social Presence and...

This article examines the psychological impact of the online dating romance scam. Unlike other mass-marketing fraud victims, these victims experienced a ‘double hit’ of the scam: a financial loss and the loss of a relationship. For most, the loss of the relationship was more upsetting than their financial losses (many described the loss of the rela...

Mass-marketing fraud is a growing international problem. Victims of this crime often experience a double hit, losing money as well as being psychologically affected. Understanding how criminals exploit online communication to develop trust and persuade individuals to give up their money is key to future work on the development of prevention program...

Abstract In spite of the number of public advice campaigns, researchers have found that individuals still engage in risky password practices. There is a dearth of research available on individual differences in cyber security behaviors. This study focused on the risky practice of sharing passwords. As predicted, we found that individuals who scored...

Past research into the hopes and dreams of individuals has focused mainly on mid-adolescence. This study investigated how dreams unfold beyond this age group by exploring: (a) the transition period from adolescence to adulthood (17 years to 22 years); and (b) the “age-thirty” transition period (28 years to 33 years). The sample (140 men and 140 wom...

The present paper examines the extent to which self-presentation may be affected by the context in which is it undertaken. Individuals were asked to complete the Twenty Statements Test both privately and publicly, but were given an opportunity to withhold any of their personal information before it was made public. Four contexts were examined: an o...

Whilst cyber-harassment is a criminal act within the United Kingdom, there is little research examining whether cyber-harassing behaviors are perceived as criminal. This paper assesses whether the 'Big Five' personality characteristics and Internet self-efficacy influence perceived criminality of cyber-harassing behaviors. The sample comprised 320...

Organisations today operate in a world fraught with threats, including “script kiddies”, hackers, hacktivists and advanced persistent threats. Although these threats can be harmful to an enterprise, a potentially more devastating and anecdotally more likely threat is that of the malicious insider. These trusted individuals have access to valuable c...

This paper draws from ‘impression management theory’ to examine the choices individuals make to visually represent themselves on Facebook and Twitter. We interviewed 20 participants about their image choice and the sorts of inferences others make about their identity. Participants were asked whether they believed their image influenced the types of...

The threat that insiders pose to businesses, institutions and governmental organisations continues to be of serious concern. Recent industry surveys and academic literature provide unequivocal evidence to support the significance of this threat and its prevalence. Despite this, however, there is still no unifying framework to fully characterise ins...

The online dating romance scam is a relatively new and under-reported international crime targeting users of online dating sites. It has serious financial and emotional consequences, affecting hundreds of thousands of people. However, little if anything is known about psychological characteristics that may put people at risk of romance scam victimi...

This chapter examines the implications the Internet has for the lives of children, for parents, and for family relationships. It begins by presenting a short history of the Internet and outlining the different types of online spaces. It then examines the arguments made by scholars over the years regarding the benefits and costs the Internet has to...

Dr Sarah V Stevenage and Professors Monica Whitty and Steve Saxby from the SuperIdentity project discuss relationships between real-world and online identities and the challenge to improve identity verification across both settings.

‘Despite technological advances, humans remain the weakest link in Internet security’ [1], this weakness is typically characterised in one of two domains. First, systems may not enable humans to interface securely, or the security mechanisms themselves are unusable or difficult to use effectively. Second, there may be something fundamental about th...

This study examined the persuasive techniques employed by criminals in the online dating romance scam. Twenty participants were interviewed, including financial and non-financial victims. The paper first examines errors in decision making and finds victims make similar errors compared with victims of other mass marketing frauds. It is also proposes...

The Online Dating Romance Scam is a relatively new form of online fraud. This article draws from three qualitative studies: an analysis of posts from a public online support group, in-depth interviews with victims of this crime and an interview with a Serious Organised Crime Agency officer to outline the anatomy of this scam. It is argued here that...

This chapter examines the unique features of Internet infidelity and how these features have altered as the Internet has evolved. It first considers how intimacy is established online and the unique aspects of an online affair. It then considers the sexual and emotional components of infidelity and attempts a generic definition for Internet infidel...

Under both benign and malign circumstances, people now manage a spectrum of identities across both real-world and cyber domains. Our belief, however, is that all these instances ultimately track back for an individual to reflect a single 'SuperIdentity'. This paper outlines the assumptions underpinning the SuperIdentity Project, describing the inno...

The Online Romance Scam is a relatively new form of fraud that became apparent in about 2008. In this crime, criminals pretend to initiate a relationship through online dating sites then defraud their victims of large sums of money. This paper presents some descriptive statistics about knowledge and victimization of the online dating romance scam i...

An online diary study was performed to investigate deception across different media. One hundred and four individuals participated in the study, with 76 completing the diaries. Individuals were most likely to lie on the telephone. Planned lies, which participants also rated the most serious, were more likely told via SMS (short message service) tex...

Video games provide virtual spaces for the representation and enactment of prohibited offline behaviour, be it in the form of more conventional violence (e.g., assault, killings, murder) or other forms of taboo violation (e.g., torture, rape, even cannibalism). This chapter considers the ways in which gamers cope with the moral freedoms afforded by...

This article considers the history of dating throughout the ages, and compares how previous forms of dating might compare to the way individuals initiate and develop relationships in cyberspace. Similarities between the ways individuals in the past developed relationships using the telegraph and love letters are elucidated. Some important differenc...

When assessing the appropriateness of single-player video games, it is our contention that questions dealing with the morality of their content are the wrong sorts of questions to ask. Instead, a more informative strategy is to focus on what gamers are able to deal with psychologically, especially regarding taboo violation. Thus, we argue that ther...

This paper is premised on the idea that cyberspace permits the user a degree of somatic flexibility—a means of transcending the physical body but not, importantly, embodiment. Set within a framework of progressive embodiment (the assumption that individuals seek to exploit somatic flexibility so as to extend the boundaries of their own embodiment—w...

This paper examined the emotional impact that engaging in or witnessing Symbolic Taboo Activities (STAs), as represented in MMORPGs (massively multiplayer online role-playing game), such as killing, torture and rape, has on adults. We focused our study on two games: World of Warcraft and Sociolotron. The study employed Interpretative Phenomenologic...

When assessing the appropriateness of massively multiplayer online role-playing games, it is our contention that questions dealing with the morality of their content – especially regarding the more ‘adult’ nature of potential interactions – are the wrong sorts of questions to ask. Instead, when considering the permissibility of such games, a more i...

The internet has become an integral part of many people’s everyday lives. It is unclear what its role is in maintaining intimate offline relationships and whether the use of the internet might cause conflicts between partners about what constitutes acceptable online behavior. An online survey of 920 married couples in the UK who used the internet i...

Cyberspace has been hailed by some as a medium through which users can experience themselves as disembodied, freed from the corporeal trappings of the “real” world. Literature proclaiming the merits of this disembodied ideal has often described the user’s existential state as a form of Cartesian disembodiment, but without (in our view) giving serio...

This paper examined whether different types of screen names offer advantages when it comes to attracting a partner on dating sites. In the pilot study, we conducted a content analysis of real screen names to develop a typology of screen names. In the main study, we explored whether the typology predicted online daters' ratings of names, and compare...

In contrast to offline gambling, the use of online behavioural tracking presents an opportunity for researchers in the social sciences to examine the actual and real-time behaviour engaged in by gamblers. If gaming companies can use behavioural tracking to learn more about their clientele, there is no reason why researchers could not adopt the same...

This study explores the role of the Internet in reconfiguring marriages, introducing couples that meet in person and later marry, through a set of online surveys of married couples in Britain, Australia, and Spain. The study found that a sizeable proportion of online married couples in each country first met their spouse online, usually through an...

This study examined the characteristics of individuals who are more likely to engage in speed dating and online dating, and the types of people who are more likely to prefer these forms of dating. Older individuals and those who scored high on shyness were more likely to have tried online dating. Older individuals, those who scored high on shyness,...

Although it is acknowledged here that there are numerous ways technology can be used to hurt people, this chapter focuses solely on one type of technology – that being cyberspace. “It is generally understood that cyberspace is the space generated by software within a computer that produces a virtual reality” (Whitty, 2003a, p. 343). However, an alt...

This research expands on the work of Goffman (1959) in seeking to examine how players of Massively Multiplayer Online games (MMOs) use virtual environments as a mechanism to explore their own offline identity, through the use of multiple characters and gender swapping. Using Thematic Analysis of four interviews, five themes have been identified whi...

This study investigated how men and women perceive online and offline sexual and emotional infidelity. Undergraduates from a large university in Northern Ireland participated in the study. It was found that men, when forced to decide, were more upset by sexual infidelity and women by emotional infidelity. It was also found that men were more likely...

This working paper explores the role of the Internet in reconfiguring marriages, introducing couples that meet in person and later marry, through a set of online surveys of married couples in Britain, Australia, and the US. We found that a sizeable proportion of online married couples in each country first met their spouse online, usually through a...

Ever since the beginnings of the internet researchers have questioned its utility in developing and maintaining psychological healthy romantic and sexual relations. Advocates of the social presence theory and media richness theory purport that in leaner media individuals can be quite aggressive towards one another (e.g., in the form of flaming). In...

The Internet is often presented as an unsafe or untrustworthy space: where children are preyed upon by paedophiles, cannibals seek out victims, offline relationships are torn apart by online affairs and where individuals are addicted to gambling, love, and cybersex. While many of these stories are grounded in truth, they do paint a rather sensation...

This paper considers the presentation of self on an internet dating site. Thirty men and 30 women were interviewed about their online dating experiences. They were asked about how they constructed their profiles and how they viewed other individuals’ profiles. Which types of presentations of self led to more successful offline romantic relationship...

This study set out to investigate the type of media individuals are more likely to tell self-serving and other-oriented lies, and whether this varied according to the target of the lie. One hundred and fifty participants rated on a likert-point scale how likely they would tell a lie. Participants were more likely to tell self-serving lies to people...

“Every technological innovation creates deviant as well as respectable possibilities” (Edgley & Kiser, 1981, p. 59). Edgley and Kiser (1981) were referring to “Polaroid sex,” that is, instant photography methods used to create homemade pornography. A quarter of a century later, this statement may equally be applied to the Internet. Ever since the b...

Employee surveillance is near ubiquitous, but it may be damaging both staff performance and morale, say Adam Joinson of University of Bath and Monica Whitty of Nottingham Trent University

Three theoretical perspectives on cultural universals and differences in the content of self-concepts were tested in individualistic (United States, n = 178; Australia, n = 112) and collectivistic (Mexico, n = 157; Philippines, n = 138) cultures, using three methods of self-concept assessment. Support was found for both trait perspectives and the i...

Online dating continues to grow in popularity as a way for individuals to locate a potential romantic partner. Researchers have examined how people present themselves on these sites, which presentations are more likely to lead to success, the effectiveness of the matchmaking tools that some companies employ, the stigma attached to using these sites...

In this study, 150 undergraduates answered questions about their Internet usage and completed a loneliness and an Internet self-efficacy questionnaire. A factor analysis of the Internet usage items revealed three facets of online recreation, including, using the Internet for: computer-based entertainment, to facilitate offline entertainment, and fo...

The Internet has become a part of our everyday lives. The number of individuals using the Internet is continuing to grow, as well as the number of hours individuals spend online. In fact, the Internet has become so popular in the UK that the average Briton spends more time logged onto the Internet than watching television (Johnson, 2006). As report...

Singles have many places and spaces available to them to find a romantic partner. How one creates a ‘first impression’ in each of these spaces can vary. This chapter argues that some of these spaces allow individuals to gradually get to know one another, while other spaces expect individuals to reveal a wealth of information about themselves prior...

This paper set out to analyze the impact generated by the adoption of Digital Rights Management (DRM) processes on the typical Digital Media Management Value Chain activities and try to analyze the processes in the context of the business model. Given the early stage of the theory development in the field of DRM the study follows the logic of groun...

While the Internet and email can be great assets to an organisation, especially in respect to creating new knowledge, nonetheless a number of problems have accompanied the introduction of the Internet into the workplace. Some of these problems include: ‘cyberslacking’, cyber-harassment and ‘Netiquette’. Employers have attempted to obviate these pro...

Although there is a paucity of research available on cyber-cheating and its effects on the offline couple, the current research available suggests that Internet relationships and online erotic interactions can have a ‘real’ impact on couples. This paper builds on the current research by exploring theoretical explanations for how individuals might r...

This article considers the deviant behavior of Internet infidelity. Although a plethora of research has been conducted on offline infidelity and jealousy, to date, there has been very little written about Internet infidelity and jealousy associated with cyber-relationships. Given the potential problems that online infidelity might bring to a relati...

While flirting is a relatively underresearched area within psychology, even less is known about how people cyber-flirt. This paper explores how often individuals flirt offline compared to online. Moreover, it attempts to examine how men and women flirt within these different spaces. Five thousand, six hundred and ninety-seven individuals, of which...

To date, there is a scarcity of literature available on the ethical concerns that accompany research into online relationships and sexuality. This chapter attempts to redress this balance. Questions are raised as to whether researchers should be permitted to lurk in chatrooms or take on different identities in order to obtain data. It is argued her...

Despite current researchers' interest in the study of online sexual addiction, there is a dearth of research available on what constitutes online infidelity. This paper attempts to redress this balance by comparing 1,117 participants' attitudes toward online and offline acts of infidelity. A factor analysis was carried out that yielded three compon...

Despite current researchers' interest in the study of online sexual addiction, there is a dearth of research available on what constitutes online infidelity. This paper attempts to redress this balance by comparing 1,117 participants' attitudes toward online and offline acts of infidelity. A factor analysis was carried out that yielded three compon...

This article compares traditional offline flirting with cyber-flirting. We begin by providing a definition of offline flirting, which we follow up with our own elaboration of cyber-flirting. The article then draws from psychoanalytic theory, in particular Winnicott's object-relations theory, to propose that cyber-flirting can be a form of play. Whi...

While there exists some research on offline flirting, there is currently little in the way of conceptual theory or empirical research on flirting in cyberspace. This paper attempts to help redress this balance. The paper initially presents a summary of the behaviour of offline flirting and particularly identifies what constitutes offline flirting s...

Previous studies have examined either coping strategies or defence mechanisms; however, few have considered both. This research examined age differences in the type of defence mechanisms and coping strategies that people employ. In addition, gender differences, personality, and environmental variables were taken into account. The three age groups u...

The notion of Internet and email mo nitoring in the workplace is a debatable issue. Some would argue that surveillance is necessary to prevent 'cyberslacking' which can lead to loss of productivity and be a waste of a company's resources. In contrast, others contend that cyberspace is a private space that employers do not have the right to intercep...

This research had two aims. Firstly, to examine availability of emotional support in chat rooms, and secondly, to investigate openness and dishonesty in chat rooms. Three hundred and twenty respondents (160 women and 160 men) filled out the ‘Chat Room Survey’. It was found that people who spend more time in chat rooms were more likely to be open ab...

This study has two main aims: (a) to explore young men's and women's hopes and dreams for the future and (b) in so doing to explore the utility of a story-writing method. It is argued here that when identity is conceptualized as a life story, researchers need to consider story-writing methods in their investigations of identity formation. Three met...

Past research on online relationships has predominantly been concerned with how the quality of online relationships compares with offline relationships. This research has been more concerned with the medium itself than with the meanings that users construct around their interpersonal interactions within this medium. The current paper seeks to redre...

IntroductIon The focus on Internet relationships has escalated in recent times, with researchers investigating such areas as the devel-opment of online relationships (e.g., McCown, Fischer, Page, & Homant, 2001; Parks & Roberts, 1998; Whitty & Gavin, 2001), the formation of friends online (Parks & Floyd, 1996), representation (Bargh, McKenna, & Fit...