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Data Donation: Sharing Personal Data for Public Good?

Authors:
Anya Skatova at University of Bristol
Anya Skatova
Esther ng at University of Hull
Esther ng
James Goulding at University of Nottingham
James Goulding
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Abstract

With the advancement of digital technology, large amounts of our personal data is being recorded and retained by third parties, constituting an invaluable asset to both governmental and private organizations. Nonetheless, there is now increasing interest in whether such data might also generate public good. Could it be used to illicit environmental consequences upon behaviour? Could it determine the contribution of nutritional effects upon illnesses such as asthma and diabetes? Before we can address such questions, we must first understand what motivations (if any) would underpin people's donation of personal data. To this end, we present the results of two online studies. We isolate two distinct factors relating to motivations to donate personal data, the opportunity to achieve self-benefit and prosocial concern for others, resulting in two distinct behavioural groups. We further provide evidence for the strong effect that public reception of the "recipient" research organization has on such decisions, and discuss the implications of these results in terms of data sharing practices.
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Data Donation: Sharing Personal Data for Public Good?
Anya Skatova
Horizon Digital Economy Research,
University of Nottingham,
Jubilee Campus, NG8 1BB
anya.skatova@nottingham.ac.uk
Esther Ng
Horizon Centre for Doctoral Training,
University of Nottingham
Jubilee Campus, NG8 1BB
esther.ng@nottingham.ac.uk
James Goulding
Horizon Centre for Doctoral Training,
University of Nottingham
Jubilee Campus, NG8 1BB
james.goulding@nottingham.ac.uk
ABSTRACT
With the advancement of digital technology, large amounts of
our personal data is being recorded and retained by third parties,
constituting an invaluable asset to both governmental and
private organizations. Nonetheless, there is now increasing
interest in whether such data might also generate public good.
Could it be used to illicit environmental consequences upon
behaviour? Could it determine the contribution of nutritional
effects upon illnesses such as asthma and diabetes? Before we
can address such questions, we must first understand what
motivations (if any) would underpin people’s donation of
personal data. To this end, we present the results of two online
studies. We isolate two distinct factors relating to motivations to
donate personal data, the opportunity to achieve self-benefit and
prosocial concern for others, resulting in two distinct
behavioural groups. We further provide evidence for the strong
effect that public reception of the “recipient” research
organization has on such decisions, and discuss the implications
of these results in terms of data sharing practices.
Keywords
Personal Data, Prosocial Behaviour, Donation, Public Good.
1. INTRODUCTION
In the new global digital economy, personal data is increasingly
being recognized as an invaluable business asset. Although there
exists research focusing on what value people place on personal
data (Skatova et al, 2013), we know very little about peoples’
motivations to share such data freely for purposes of public
good. Would individuals would be willing to risk donating their
personal data for prosocial purposes, even when such a decision
might potentially jeopardize their privacy? Are their cases where
such concerns might be outweighed by potential benefits to
society (e.g. supermarket loyalty card data being donated along
with customers’ self-reports of health issues, in order to uncover
hitherto unknown nutritional patterns associated with various
diseases). In this paper we examine these issues, investigating
what factors might motivate, or preclude, the decision to donate
personal data to socially beneficial research causes.
2. BACKGROUND
Prosocial behaviour is an umbrella term used to describe actions
undertaken to benefit other people or society as a whole
(Schwartz & Bilsky, 1990). It includes volunteer work (Foster et
al, 2001), money (Frey & Meier, 2004) or blood donation
(Piliavin & Callero, 1991), and helpful interventions (Batson,
1987). Given the high frequency of prosocial behaviours in our
society, extensive research has explored the individuals’
motivation to benefit others (Weinstein & Ryan, 2010) and it
has been demonstrated that, apart from various objective factors
such as person’s income or attitude to specific cause, people are
highly motivated both by the desire to help others (e.g. “by
donating blood I will contribute to the good of society”) and to
receive direct benefit (e.g. “by donating blood I will get days off
work”) (Evans & Ferguson, 2014). Similar factors may well
influence an individual’s willingness to donate personal data.
Such differences in motivations will have large implications for
any campaigns that encourage the sharing of personal data for
social good. Research has shown that those induced toward a
communal orientation are more likely to help (Clark et al, 1986)
and pay more attention to recipients’ needs, resulting in greater
benefits to both parties (Clark et al, 1987). However, it is not
currently clear whether these conclusions can also be applied to
prosocial behaviour in data donation. Via two initial
investigatory studies, we examined people’s dispositions to the
sharing of personal data for purposes of public good, and
investigate the motivations underpinning those decisions.
3. STUDY 1: Donators’ Motivations
Our first study focused on an examination of potential drivers
for personal data donation, and the issues that might preclude
such behaviour. 125 volunteers were recruited via departmental
mailing lists and word of mouth to complete an online survey.
Participants were incentivized by £20 prize draw, with the
survey being distributed via the Qualtrics platform. The mean
age of respondents was 29.32 (21-57) years old; 72% - female,
28% - Male. Of these 14% said they were not familiar with the
concept of personal data is, with 65% reporting the converse.
34% reported dealing with other people’s personal data at work
in some form, and 4% consider themselves experts in the area.
Participants were first supplied with a paragraph describing how
retail transactional data might be recorded, with the possibility
then being raised that such data could be donated to charitable or
research organizations (e.g. Cancer Research UK, to facilitate
research of illness/disease and thus contribute to the public
good). Participants were subsequently asked to rate how likely
they would be to consent to such a request using a seven point
scale ranging from unlikely to likely, with additional option to
comment. Participants were next presented with 37 questions,
each containing a statement reflecting a reason to donate/not
donate personal data (e.g. I would donate data to charity/health
organizations: due to genuine concern about social issues; if
research would benefit a family member; based on how it would
be used.). Questions were based on previous literature on
prosocial behavior (e.g., Evans & Ferguson, 2014), and
participants were instructed to rate how strongly they agree or
disagree using a five point Likert scale.
3.1 Study 1 Results
60% of participants stated that they would be willing to donate
transactional personal data to research if it could lead to public
good, with only 25% stating that they would not (see figure 1 for
the distribution of results). While these results strongly
evidenced prosocial data sharing behaviour, 90 participants also
chose to comment on this decision. The majority of these were
justifications of positive responses (e.g. “I see no reason to
object to this data being used, as long as it is anonymized” / “all
manner of things are already being done with my shopping
data... it can’t hurt to contribute to public good”). Several
participants, however, provided clear qualification that decisions
were dependent on how data would be treated (e.g., “This
depends on who was leading data collection and their policies”
and “this would depend on the research involved”).
We then applied Exploratory Factor Analysis (Fabrigar et al,
1999) to the 37 motivational items, uncovering that individuals
appeared willing to donate personal data for 2 distinct reasons:
(i) concern about others or society and (ii) concern about
personal benefits (e.g. tokens and reputation). Results showed
that the higher the concern an individual declared for others, the
more likely they were to donate (see Figure 2). On the contrary,
the self-benefit motivation was stronger in those who stated low
likelihood to donate (see Figure 3). Projecting participant
responses onto the two exploratory factors also revealed two
distinct behavioural groups (see Figure 4): a group of
individuals with high prosocial motivation acting independently
of self-benefit, and a group with lower prosocial tendency
exhibiting a strong linear relationship with self-benefit
motivations. Experience of working with personal data did not
appear to affect such motivations or likelihood to donate.
4. STUDY 2: Donators’ Perceptions
An interesting output of participant comments from Study 1 was
that the perception of receiver organization was stated as an
important factor in the decision to donate personal data. Study 2
therefore examined how different “receiving” organizations
were perceived, concentrating on the attributes by which
individuals differentiated them most significantly. 65 volunteers
were recruited via departmental mailing lists and word of mouth
to fill in an online survey for no monetary incentive. The survey
was again distributed via Qualtrics software. The mean age was
32.25 years old, with a range of 21 to 67; 48% of participants
were female; 40% were born in UK and 50% have resided in
UK for more than 5 years. 12 items were presented to
participants to assess their perception of various organizations.
Items represented dimensions of trustworthiness (e.g. “I have
confidence and trust in this organization”) and familiarity (e.g.
“This organization is well-known”). Participants were requested
to rate 12 items using five-point Likert scale. Each participant
had to separately rate 3 randomly chosen organizations out of
list of 14 (e.g., Cancer Research, Experian, UK Government,
etc. - see Figure 5 for the full list), using the set of twelve items.
4.1 Study 2 Results
Applying factor analysis on the twelve items demonstrated that
we only needed two dimensions (which we were able to
characterize as “familiarity” and “trustworthiness”) to succinctly
explain how people differentiated between organizations. We
found that some organizations were rated as both “trustworthy
and well-known” (e.g. Cancer Research UK), while others were
“well-known but untrustworthy” (e.g., UK Government) or
“trustworthy but not well-known” (e.g., Institute of Food
Research UK). Finally, there were organizations, which were
rated as not well-known and not trustworthy (e.g., Mintel
Marketing Research Company; see Figure 3).
5. CONCLUSIONS
The main contributions of this paper were to demonstrate that
(a) a majority of respondents were willing to donate personal
data to research intended to lead to public good, and (b)
participants associated their motivations to donate their personal
data with self-benefit and concern for others. These motivations
were associated with the likelihood to donate: those who were
likely to donate made these decisions mostly in order to help
others; participants who were less likely to donate were
motivated by guaranteed direct personal benefits. Our results
also showed that the way people perceived the “recipient”
research organization that would analyze the donated data was
key to their decision to donate. In Study 2 we explored public
perceptions of different organizations and demonstrated that two
aspects were the most relevant: the trustworthiness and
familiarity of the organization.
Our findings would appear to find that the concept of Data
Donation holds promise as a useful tool in digital economy,
providing value to third sector and well-being researchers as
well as marketing and the private sector. We further
demonstrated that motivation to donate personal data for public
good match those identified in previous research on prosocial
behavior in domains such as blood donation (Evans and
Ferguson, 2014), as well as with more generic motivational
constructs (Skatova, 2011). We suggest that self-benefit and
other-regarding dimensions of motivation should be accounted
for when prompting people to provide their personal data for
public good. Future research could look into whether the way
organizations are perceived (e.g., high on trust and familiarity
versus low on trust and familiarity) will influence the likelihood
to donate personal data and the reasons behind it.
6. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This work was funded by the RCUK Horizon Digital Economy
Research Hub grant, EP/G065802/1.
7. REFERENCES
Batson, C. D. (1990). How social an animal? The human
capacity for caring.American Psychologist, 45(3), 336.
Clark, M. S., Mills, J., & Powell, M. C. (1986). Keeping track of
needs in communal and exchange relationships. Journal of
personality and social psychology, 51(2), 333.
Clark, M. S., Oullette, R., Powell, M. C., & Milberg, S. (1987).
Recipient's mood, relationship type, and helping. Journal of
personality and social psychology, 53(1), 94.
Evans, R., & Ferguson, E. (2014). Defining and measuring
blood donor altruism: a theoretical approach from biology,
economics and psychology. Vox sanguinis, 106(2), 118-126.
Fabrigar, L. R., Wegener, D. T., MacCallum, R. C., & Strahan,
E. J. (1999). Evaluating the use of exploratory factor analysis in
psychological research. Psychological methods, 4(3), 272.
Foster, V., Mourato, S., Pearce, D. W., & Ozdemiroglu, E.
(2001). The Price of Virtue: The Economic Value of Charities.
Frey, B. S., & Meier, S. (2004). Social comparisons and pro-
social behavior: Testing" conditional cooperation" in a field
experiment. American Economic Review, 1717-1722.Piliavin, J.
A., & Callero, P. L. (1991). Giving blood: The development of
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Schwartz, S. H., & Bilsky, W. (1990). Toward a theory of the
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Lodge, T., Wagenr, C., Goulding, J., Crowcroft, J., and
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Skatova, A.A. (2011). Underpinnings of higher level
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Weinstein, N., & Ryan, R. M. (2010). When helping helps:
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8. FIGURES
Figure 1. Percentage of participants who are likely, unlikely and neither
likely nor unlikely to donate their personal data from loyalty cards to
research that may lead to public good
Figure 2. Likelihood to donate personal data versus concern for others.
Figure 3. Likelihood to donate versus desire for direct benefits.
Figure 4. Cluster Analysis of the two explanatory factors underpinning
motivation to donate, illustrating distinct motivational groups.. Blue dots
represent individuals with a low willingness to donate (3 or less); Red
dots individuals with a high willingness to donate (5or more).
Figure 5. Perception of different organizations on trustworthiness and
familiarity: (1) Cancer Research UK; (2) British Heart Foundation; (3)
Alzheimer’s Society; (4) Diabetes Foundation UK; (5) Defense Science
and Technology Laboratory UK; (6) National Institute for Medical
Research, UK; (7) Department for Business Innovation and Skills, UK;
(8) Institute of Food Research UK; (9) School of Medicine, University
of Nottingham; (10) Mintel Marketing Research Company; (11)
International Institute for Environment and Development; (12) Experian
Plc; (13) UK Government; (14) National Health Service (NHS).
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... Data donations can be considered acts that serve the public good (Skatova et al. 2014). Thus, data donations often appeal to individuals' pro-social motives to contribute to a common good. ...
... In this context, the potential coupling of social benefits with personal benefits uniquely afforded by data donations present a promising avenue for encouraging donors and raises novel questions for researchers across disciplines (Skatova et al. 2014). For example, donors may receive personalized insights, recommendations or feedback from their data, while also contributing to the public good. ...
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... Previous research argues for ensuring that data donors derive value from engaging in data donation (Prainsack 2019a;Hummel et al. 2019;Bietz et al. 2019). They have proposed potential avenues for it; including (1) positive feelings derived from contributing to scientific research (Skatova et al. 2014;Skatova and Goulding 2019), and (2) future benefits from the research outputs (Prainsack 2019a;Skatova and Goulding 2019). In this paper, we hypothesized that a better understanding (i.e., increased (personal) data literacy) of the data yields a return of value for donors. ...
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  • Oct 2013
  • VOX SANG
While blood donation is traditionally described as a behaviour motivated by pure altruism, the assessment of altruism in the blood donation literature has not been theoretically informed. Drawing on theories of altruism from psychology, economics and evolutionary biology, it is argued that a theoretically derived psychometric assessment of altruism is needed. Such a measure is developed in this study that can be used to help inform both our understanding of the altruistic motives of blood donors and recruitment intervention strategies. A cross-sectional survey (N = 414), with a 1-month behavioural follow-up (time 2, N = 77), was designed to assess theoretically derived constructs from psychological, economic and evolutionary biological theories of altruism. Theory of planned behaviour (TPB) variables and co-operation were also assessed at time 1 and a measure of behavioural co-operation at time 2. Five theoretical dimensions (impure altruism, kinship, self-regarding motives, reluctant altruism and egalitarian warm glow) of altruism were identified through factor analyses. These five altruistic motives differentiated blood donors from non-donors (donors scored higher on impure altruism and reluctant altruism), showed incremental validity over TPB constructs to predict donor intention and predicted future co-operative behaviour. These findings show that altruism in the context of blood donation is multifaceted and complex and, does not reflect pure altruism. This has implication for recruitment campaigns that focus solely on pure altruism.
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How Social an Animal? The Human Capacity for Caring
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Full-text available
  • Mar 1990
We live in a social arena. Yet, in our interactions with others do we ever really care about them, or is the real target of our concern always, exclusively ourselves? For many years psychology, including social psychology, has assumed that we are social egoists, caring exclusively for ourselves. Today, the computer analogy that underlies so much thinking in cognitive and social psychology overlooks the fact that we care altogether. Recent evidence in support of the empathy-altruism hypothesis suggests a very different view. It suggests that not only do we care but also that when we feel empathy for others in need, we are capable of caring for them for their sakes and not our own. Limits on the human capacity for altruistic caring are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
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Toward a Theory of the Universal Content and Structure of Values: Extensions and Cross-Cultural Replications
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Full-text available
  • May 1990
The universality of S. H. Schwartz and W. Bilsky's (see record 1988-01444-001) theory of the psychological content and structure of human values was examined with data from Australia, Finland, Hong Kong, Spain, and the United States. Smallest space analyses of the importance ratings that individuals assigned to values revealed the same 7 distinct motivational types of values in each sample as had emerged earlier in samples from Germany and Israel: achievement, enjoyment, maturity, prosocial, restrictive conformity, security, self-direction. Social power, studied only in Hong Kong, also emerged. The structural relations among the value types suggest that the motivational dynamics underlying people's value priorities are similar across the societies studied, with an exception in Hong Kong. The interests that values serve (individual vs. collective) and their goal type (instrumental vs. terminal) also distinguished values in all samples. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
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When Helping Helps: Autonomous Motivation for Prosocial Behavior and Its Influence on Well-Being for the Helper and Recipient
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Full-text available
  • Feb 2010
Self-determination theory posits that the degree to which a prosocial act is volitional or autonomous predicts its effect on well-being and that psychological need satisfaction mediates this relation. Four studies tested the impact of autonomous and controlled motivation for helping others on well-being and explored effects on other outcomes of helping for both helpers and recipients. Study 1 used a diary method to assess daily relations between prosocial behaviors and helper well-being and tested mediating effects of basic psychological need satisfaction. Study 2 examined the effect of choice on motivation and consequences of autonomous versus controlled helping using an experimental design. Study 3 examined the consequences of autonomous versus controlled helping for both helpers and recipients in a dyadic task. Finally, Study 4 manipulated motivation to predict helper and recipient outcomes. Findings support the idea that autonomous motivation for helping yields benefits for both helper and recipient through greater need satisfaction. Limitations and implications are discussed.
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Underpinnings of higher level motivational orientations
Article
  • Jul 2011
This thesis explored underpinnings of the higher level motivational orientations, generic to various types of human choice, such as pro-social, intrinsic, achievement motivation and free-riding. Two different choice situations were examined: a choice of degree was utilized as a model of a real life choice and an experimental economic game (e.g. a public goods game) was used to study choices in a controlled laboratory environment. Reinforcement Sensitivity Theory (RST, Gray & McNaughton, 2000) was employed as a theoretical framework of biological motivational traits to examine their links to higher level motivational orientations. RST proposes that individual differences in a vast range of behaviours are linked to individual propensities to approach or avoid in rewarding or punishing contexts. Thus, an individual differences framework was applied to study underpinnings of higher level motivational orientations through their links to the basic motivational traits of behavioural approach and inhibition. The results demonstrated that similar motivations (e.g. pro-social or strategic achievement tendencies) affected individual choices in both situations. In addition, these motivations were linked in a coherent fashion to the biological motivational traits of approach and avoidance. Specifically, individual differences in both intrinsic and strategic achievement motivation were associated with the trait behavioural approach. Pro-social and free-riding motivations were linked to the behavioural inhibition. Furthermore, individual choices in two different situations were mutually consistent. This research agenda reinforces the notion that individual choices on different levels (with a long-term influence, e.g. a choice of degree, or with a short-term influence, e.g. making a charitable donation) in part depend on dispositional traits (e.g. behavioural approach and inhibition). Incorporating the knowledge of basic motivational and affective decision-making mechanisms into the models of individual differences in motivation could considerably improve predictions about individual choices in real life. The findings contribute to the understanding of basic mechanisms underlying individual motivation. Links are established herein of the basic motivational traits to the higher level motivational orientations. These can serve as a starting point to develop further hypotheses about the underlying neurobiological mechanisms of higher level motivational orientations and individual choices in real life.
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Keeping Track of Needs in Communal and Exchange Relationships
Article
  • Sep 1986
Keeping track of needs in communal and exchange relationships was investigated in two experiments. In both, subjects could check to see if another person needed help. The first experiment tested the hypotheses that When there is no opportunity for the other to reciprocate in kind, keeping track of the other's needs will be greater if the person desires a communal relationship with the other than if the person desires an exchange relationship with the other. If the person desires an exchange relationship with the other, keeping track of the other's needs will be greater when an opportunity for the other to reciprocate in kind exists than when it does not. If a communal relationship is desired, the existence of an opportunity for the other to reciprocate in kind will not influence keeping track of the other's needs. The results of the first experiment supported all three hypotheses. The second experiment tested and found support for the hypothesis that even when nothing can be done to help the other, keeping track of the other's needs will be greater if a communal relationship is desired with the other than if an exchange relationship is desired.
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Social Comparisons and Pro-social Behavior: Testing “Conditional Cooperation” in a Field Experiment
Article
  • Dec 2004
Corruption in the public sector erodes tax compliance and leads to higher tax evasion. Moreover, corrupt public officials abuse their public power to extort bribes from the private agents. In both types of interaction with the public sector, the private agents are bound to face uncertainty with respect to their disposable incomes. To analyse effects of this uncertainty, a stochastic dynamic growth model with the public sector is examined. It is shown that deterministic excessive red tape and corruption deteriorate the growth potential through income redistribution and public sector inefficiencies. Most importantly, it is demonstrated that the increase in corruption via higher uncertainty exerts adverse effects on capital accumulation, thus leading to lower growth rates.
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