Abstract
A key issue facing today’s society is the increase in cyber crimes. Cyber crimes pose
threats to nations, organizations and individuals across the globe. Much of the research in
cyber crime has risen from computer science-centric programs and little experimental
research has been performed on the psychology of cyber crime. This has caused a
knowledge gap in the study of cyber crime. To this end, this dissertation focuses on
understanding psychological concepts related to cyber crime. Through an experimental
design, participants were randomly assigned to three groups with varying degrees of
anonymity. After each treatment, participants were asked to self-report their cyber crime
engagement, antisocial behavior and pre-employment integrity. Results indicated that the
anonymity manipulation had a main effect on self-reported cyber crime engagement. The
results also showed that there is a statistically significant positive relationship between
self-reported antisocial behaviors and cyber crime engagement, and a statistically
significant negative relationship between self-reported cyber crime engagement and pre-
employment integrity. Suggestions for future research are also discussed.
