The reason, Mamonov thinks, has a lot to do with people’s perceptions of surveillance. He guessed that study participants would have wanted to protect themselves against it; instead, he says, the magnitude of the threat seems to have instilled a sense of helplessness that made them less likely to put an effort into securing themselves.

Most of Mamonov’s research focuses on the role of perception in the online world. He’s also spent a lot of time considering the role of perceived norms in people’s relationships with the social media platforms they use every day—and whether those perceived norms are, in fact, more important than the actual rules that govern use of the sites. I spoke with Mamonov about his research; a transcript of our conversation, lightly edited for clarity and concision, follows.

Kaveh Waddell: Why are perceptions so important in the online world?

Stanislav Mamonov: I don’t think it’s just in the online world; it’s in the offline world, too.

Let me give you a little bit of background on this story. When I started this research, Facebook, which was gaining popularity, was already facing four class-action lawsuits related to how it was appropriating information rights. Then, I came across a very interesting bit of research from an organizational context: something called psychological contract theory. It effectively said that if we want to understand what happens in an employment context, legal contracts really don’t tell us much about who’s going to stay and how hard people are going to work.

Drawing on that theory, I started developing a theory of psychological contracts in information exchanges, and thinking about what implicit perceived obligations people have in relation to technology providers whenever they share information through technology-mediated channels.

Facebook is obviously both a poster child for these problems, but also a very successful company. And there are many others—TripAdvisor, Yelp: They all monetize their user-shared content. So I thought it would be neat to examine the user expectations that, when breached, might affect the sustainability of a business model that that relies on continued user information-sharing.

Waddell: You found, essentially, that it’s more important to a user when their perceived contract with a company is violated than when the actual legal contract that they entered into with that company is violated. People know that they’re accepting terms of service—why is it that this perceived contract holds so much more importance?

Mamonov: I believe that the roots of this came from evolution: People responding emotionally to things they perceive as unfair or infringing on their dignity or on their person. Once the emotions get triggered—whether it’s disgust, anger, distrust—they have virtually instant consequences.