Data governance transparency and psychological wellbeing in digital platforms: the roles of trust and emotional regulation
TL;DR
Perceived data governance transparency may support platform-related psychological wellbeing through an organized process involving trust and emotional regulation, although its benefits are weaker among users with stronger privacy concern.
Abstract
Introduction Digital platforms increasingly govern users through data collection, inference, sharing, retention, and accountability arrangements, but the psychological consequences of perceived data governance transparency remain underexamined. This study tested whether perceived transparency is associated with platform-related psychological wellbeing through trust and context-specific emotional regulation, and whether privacy concern weakens this relationship. Methods Study 1 surveyed 612 adult digital platform users recruited through a professional online panel in mainland China. Confirmatory factor analysis, structural equation modeling, bias-corrected bootstrap mediation with 5,000 resamples, common-method diagnostics, and moderation analysis were conducted. Study 2 used between-subjects scenario experiment with 286 participants assigned to high- or low-transparency descriptions of a fictitious platform. Group comparisons and bootstrap conditional process analyses tested the proposed mechanism. Results In Study 1, perceived transparency was positively associated with wellbeing (beta = 0.17, p < 0.01), trust (beta = 0.59, p < 0.001), and emotional regulation (beta = 0.16, p < 0.01). Trust and emotional regulation showed significant separate indirect effects, and the sequential indirect effect was 0.077 (95% CI [0.049, 0.113]). Privacy concern weakened the direct transparency-wellbeing association (interaction beta = −0.08, p = 0.018). In Study 2, the high-transparency condition produced higher trust (d = 0.84), emotional regulation (d = 0.51), and wellbeing (d = 0.64); the sequential indirect effect was 0.072 (95% CI [0.036, 0.122]). Discussion Perceived data governance transparency may support platform-related psychological wellbeing through an organized process involving trust and emotional regulation, although its benefits are weaker among users with stronger privacy concern. The experimental findings are limited to structured vs. vague policy-text cues and should not be generalized to the full ecology of real-world platform governance.