About the project

In the cSALSA project, we take a lifespan approach to studying how cyber-security is understood, and the attitudes and behaviours of people to cyber-security and risk.

The project studies cyber-security across three main life stages - amongst young people, those of working age, and older people. The research project focuses on how people's attitudes and behaviours towards cyber-security and risk change across the lifespan in sync with their goals and aspirations, cognitive abilities and knowledge and ability to control and adapt their cyber-security behaviour.

Importantly, we recognize that neither cyber-security related behaviours nor life course development occur in a vacuum. Rather, they are part of a complex inter-play of individual characteristics, elements shared with others in a particular life stage, and the dynamic context in which the person finds themselves. These contexts include aspects of family life, organizational structures, cognitive capacity and knowledge, and social support networks.

We will be taking a three pronged approach to studying these three life stages:

• (1) research investigating how cyber-security is understood and framed in everyday language across the lifespan;
• (2) in-depth qualitative and quantitative work on cyber-security attitudes, knowledge and behaviour across our three points in life, with a specific focus on how the dynamics of people's lives influences how cyber-security is understood, risks appraised and talked about, and actions taken; and
• (3) specific work on metrics for cyber-security, and the development of new psychometrically validated measures of cyber-security perceptions and behaviours.