A study of perception of privacy: Scale development and investigation of the relationship between perceptions of privacy and self-construal

Privacy is a system in which both individuals and groups regulate their access and control this access. The individual reveals his / her perception of privacy by deciding how much information he / she has shared or not about himself / herself. As Westin expresses, privacy is a right which a person can be alone and decide on the people who he / she will be in contact with, the places, and the content of the communication. In addition, it is thought that the need for privacy is universal and this need is continuous. The individual who meets the need for privacy has had the opportunity to contribute to his / her own identity and individuality (Margulis, 2005). When looking at privacy sub-dimensions in the light of Westin's theoretical approach, four dimensions come to the fore. These dimensions are solitude, anonymity, intimacy, self-avoidance (avoiding self-disclosure) (cited in Margulis 2011, SemizTürkoğlu, 2018). The main purpose of this study is to develop a scale that will measure the perception of privacy and measure its relationship with self-constructs, which are a cultural reflection; by framing the sub-dimensions of the perception of privacy, it also helps to classify the need for privacy and to contribute to the individual identity by meeting the privacy need of the individual who has increased awareness on this issue. In order to measure the perception of privacy among university students, short interviews with the students, whose literature was scanned in order to develop the Need for Anonymity, the Need to Protect Personal Information, the were resolved and the item pool was created by taking the opinions of experts. The created item pool was presented to two Educational Psychology experts, one Psychological Counselling and Guidance expert, one Assessment and Evaluation expert and one Turkish Language Literature expert, and their opinionswere taken. The scales were finalized in line with the feedback and suggestions from experts. Validity and reliability studies were carried out by applying on 224 undergraduate students who were studying in Aksaray in 2018-2019 and participated in the study voluntarily. The study has been done based on the relational screening model. The study is a causal- comparative research of the predictive powers of relational, autonomous, autonomous-relational ego-forms of the variables of the Need for Anonymity, the Need to Protect Personal Information, the Need Intimacy, and the Need for Solitude. In the study, a structural equation model was developed and tested, showing the effects of the relevant variables on the level of alienation. At the end of the study, the perception of privacy was examined in 4 sub-dimensions and it is seen that when the autonomous self, which is one of the self-construal of the person, increases, the need to keep personal information decreases; but the need for private space increases.It was concluded that as the autonomous relational self of an individual increases, the need to intimacy also increases; but avoiding emotionally opening up decreases. It was found that as the relational self of an individual increases, anonymity and the need to avoid disclosure decreases, while the need intimacy increases.