The Association Between Information Security and Reward Processing

Insider threat represents a significant source of violations of information security within corporations and government entities. Therefore, gaining a clearer understanding of the factors that moderate insider threat is important for the information systems community. The current study builds upon previous behavioral research demonstrating that an imbalance between one's sensitivity to gains and losses may contribute to violations of information security by using event-related brain potentials (ERPs) to examine the association between information security decision-making and the neural correlates of the processing of gains and losses. The ERP data revealed that the amplitude of differences in neural activity between gains and losses was greater in individuals who were more likely to endorse violating information security, and that this association was observed regardless of whether gains or losses resulted from an active choice or were outside of the control of the individual.