The research paper that was looked over is called “Cybersecurity when working from home during COVID-19” by Monica T. Whitty, Nour Moustafa, and Marthie Grobler: the paper discusses the lives of Australian employees working in the cybersecurity field who had to start working from home due to the Covid-19 pandemic. The research question investigated in this study is whether remote work had a positive psychological effect on an employee’s behavior

 There are many principles of social sciences presented within the work. Some of the sciences that I saw consisted of empirical observation, which means looking at a situation carefully to gather information. An example of this within the work is differences between individuals and their way of thinking predicted their cybersecurity behaviors. “Using self-reporting behaviors and information security awareness scores to gather this information”(Whitty, Monica T). Another principle that takes place is context sensitivity which means how individuals understand something or how they behave can change depending on the situation they are in. The work itself acknowledges the factors around cybersecurity behaviors, such as  the switch from in person to remote work during the pandemic as an example of a situation. It shows the importance of understanding personal challenges that employees have to face due to the change of environment. One last principle that was noticed was theory development and testing; this means creating an idea about how something works and then checking if it is true. Psychologists and social scientists create a theory concerning individuals personality traits “conscientiousness, agreeableness, and openness”(Whitty, Monica T). And that helps them be better prepared to predict cybersecurity behaviors.

One of the types of research methods being used is a “Hermeneutic approach which means constantly going back to the data to understand it better”(Whitty, Monica T). Understanding the experiences of individuals and how remote work has affects on a person, this can take a significant amount of time before fully understanding an individual’s behaviors. The researchers chose this approach because it helps them see the cultural and cognitive interactions individuals have. The type of data used within the work is qualitative data, and it explains whether remote work has an effect on an individual’s approach to learn new things for the cybersecurity field. The type of analysis is qualitative, and it utilizes themes, patterns, and meanings.. A concept that we learned in class that relates to this work is Psychological Theory, which is the understanding of human behavior, emotion and mental processing. This theory gave a better understanding of how individuals felt about working from home. Some individuals found it to be a better solution to balance work and the home environment, while others had a harder time balancing the stress of the two. 

There were different effects on different groups of people, the article refers to many different technological programs and kinds of technology. With having to switch to remote working this affected the older generations of people. This demographic had trouble understanding many of the new aspects of remote work which had an effect on how they worked. Overall the study was interesting. It explained how cybersecurity had to take an alternative route due to the pandemic. It shows how society had to take a different approach switching from a working environment to a remote environment showing the difficulty along the path, yet still overcoming them. 

Work Cited 

Whitty, Monica T, et al. “Cybersecurity When Working from Home during COVID-19: Considering the Human Factors.” OUP Academic, Oxford University Press, 24 Jan. 2024, academic.oup.com/cybersecurity/article/10/1/tyae001/7588826?searchresult=1.