Nudging is a promising approach, in terms of influencing people to make advisable choices in a range of domains, including cybersecurity. However, the processes underlying the concept and the nudge’s effectiveness in different contexts, and in the long term, are still poorly understood. Our research thus first reviewed the nudge concept and differentiated it from other interventions before applying it to the cybersecurity area. We then carried out an empirical study to assess the effectiveness of three different nudge-related interventions on four types of cybersecurity-specific decisions. Our study demonstrated that the combination of a simple nudge and information provision, termed a “hybrid nudge,” was at least as, and in some decision contexts even more effective in encouraging secure choices as the simple nudge on its own. This indicates that the inclusion of information when deploying a nudge, thereby increasing the intervention’s transparency, does not necessarily diminish its effectiveness. A follow-up study explored the educational and long-term impact of our tested nudge interventions to encourage secure choices. The results indicate that the impact of the initial nudges, of all kinds, did not endure. We conclude by discussing our findings and their implications for research and practice.

中文翻译：

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轻推拼图

就影响人们在包括网络安全在内的一系列领域做出明智选择而言，助推是一种很有前途的方法。然而，这一概念背后的过程以及推动在不同背景下和长期的有效性仍然知之甚少。因此，我们的研究首先回顾了轻推概念，并将其与其他干预措施区分开来，然后再将其应用于网络安全领域。然后，我们进行了一项实证研究，以评估三种不同的轻推相关干预措施对四种类型的网络安全特定决策的有效性。我们的研究表明，简单的轻推和信息提供的结合，称为“混合轻推”，至少在某些决策环境中更有效地鼓励安全选择，因为它本身就是简单的轻推。这表明在部署轻推时包含信息，从而提高干预的透明度，并不一定会降低其有效性。一项后续研究探讨了我们经过测试的轻推干预措施的教育和长期影响，以鼓励安全的选择。结果表明，最初的各种轻推的影响都没有持久。最后，我们讨论了我们的发现及其对研究和实践的影响。