A construal level theory approach to privacy protection: The conjoint impact of benefits and risks of information disclosure

•To reach acceptable levels of transparency in marketplace interactions, companies need to communicate both the benefits and the risks associated with the disclosure of personal information.•Companies’ framings of the benefits and risks of sharing information affect disclosures, leading consumers to share more personal data than their privacy preferences would suggest.•When consumers are exposed to concrete (vs. abstract) privacy risks, they perceive personal questions as more sensitive and are less likely to reveal personal information.•When exposed to privacy protection statements (rather than privacy risks per se), consumers reveal more information if those statements are concrete.•The abstraction level of risks influences information disclosure only if the benefits of disclosure are concrete.•Consumers’ feelings of vulnerability mediate the relationship between the framing of the benefits and risks and information disclosure, in support of the relevance of construal level theory for explaining information disclosure processes.