Psychological Factors of Cybersecurity and Trust in Fake News in Internet Communication: Review of Contemporary Foreign Studies

The paper presents a systematic review of contemporary foreign research on psychological factors of cybersecurity and trust in fake news. It contains an analysis of theoretical developments and empirical studies of the psychological aspects of cybersecurity within the framework of the concepts of personality psychology, behavioral psychology and social psychology. Despite the fact that general psychological patterns and theoretical models of these branches of psychology are used in the study of cybersecurity, the available results of research in this area still do not form a holistic picture of the psychological factors of cybersecurity behavior. At the same time, the factors of personal characteristics and behavior of cybercriminals seem to be better studied and more understandable than the factors of compliance and violation of the rules of cybersecurity behavior by “ordinary” users. The article then presents a review of empirical studies on the reasons why Internet users trust fake news and how to overcome it. General awareness of the problem of the spread of fake news is shown to offer little help in reducing trust in fake news, and the use of ineffective strategies for recognizing fake news often has the opposite effect. A more sophisticated strategy based on knowledge of the specific techniques by which fake news is created, on the contrary, can more effectively reduce the risk of trust in fake news. The author comes to the conclusion that measures promoting cybersecurity behavior of Internet users are advisable if aimed not at stimulating vigilance, but at increasing confidence in the picture of the world, in which the phenomena of cybersecurity threats and fake news are built in as a familiar and understandable component.

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