Vol. 77, No. 3Ask an expert

The missing link

Shedding light on human behaviour online

Mary Aiken is the inspiration for the CBS primetime show CSI: Cyber, in which the lead character is a cyber psychologist working for a fictional FBI unit. Credit: CBS

Professor Mary Aiken is a cyber psychologist whose research focuses on cyber behavioural analysis. A recognized expert in the field, Aiken studies organized cybercrime, virtual behavioral profiling, human trafficking and technology, cyberstalking and cyberbullying, to name a few. She spoke to Katherine Aldred about her international research project on sexting and her involvement with the CBS show CSI: Cyber, which is inspired by her work.

What is cyber psychology?

Cyber psychology is part of applied psychology and is now considered an emerged discipline within the behavioural sciences. It focuses on the study of the impact of emerging technology on human behaviour. I say that cyber psychology delivers insight at the intersection between humans and technology.

Can you provide some examples?

Cyber psychology considers how behaviour mutates in cyberspace. We consider factors like anonymity and online disinhibition. Online disinhibition dictates that you may do things in a virtual context that you wouldn't do in the real world. Disinhibition may be fine for normal human behaviour, but when we think about that in terms of criminal behaviour, it can mean this population may also do things in a virtual context that they wouldn't do in the real world.

My experience across a number of research areas highlights that whenever technology interfaces with a base human disposition the resulting behaviour tends to be amplified and accelerated online. For example, stalking. In a real-world context, a stalker would typically have one victim and the modus operandi would be to stalk that victim, which can be very intensive. It's a lot of work — observation, surveillance, following — and it places the stalker at risk of being caught. The motive to engage in the stalking behaviour is the 'glimpse of intimacy' into the victim's life.

Cyber stalking is different in that cyber stalkers can stalk multiple victims simultaneously. Why? Because technology affords them the ability to do so. In addition, it's not just a glimpse of intimacy into the victim's life, but it's the victim's entire life that can be accessed: their online calendar or diary, emails, photographs and personal correspondence — everything. In real-world stalking, perpetrators are predominantly male — female stalking is reasonably rare — but in cyber stalking we are beginning to see more evidence of female stalkers.

How does your research apply to police work?

I'm conducting an international study at the moment for INTERPOL that's examining the phenomenon of sexting. While some view sexting as a social issue, the problem is that when a minor takes an indecent image of themselves, it is in most jurisdictions de facto the generation and distribution of child pornography, albeit of yourself. This leads to a very interesting debate in terms of dealing with sexting — that is, should it be considered a social or a criminal problem?

Child exploitation material and sexted images can look very similar. This is a major problem from a policing perspective. Did we ever think or could we have predicted that in terms of human behaviour children and adolescents would begin to spontaneously generate this material of themselves? This evolution of behaviour points to the importance of cyber psychology as a discipline which can provide insight as to why minors take and disseminate these images, and more importantly what forms of intervention may be most effective.

The INTERPOL study was designed to generate insight via analysis of actual sexted images held by law enforcement. From a cyber psychology perspective, the image is evidence of the behaviour captured at a point in time when the minor is psychologically immersed in cyberspace — the point at which they are holding their mobile phone, looking into the camera and thinking, 'I'm capturing this image to send to my boyfriend,' likely focusing on all the good things that are going to happen and not factoring in negative outcomes. The premise of the study was to forensically examine the images and identify behavioral drivers that may be embedded in the images. Results will be made available later this year and there are some very interesting preliminary findings such as image-based evidence of sexting as a group, which hasn't been heavily reported or studied to date.

You wouldn't think of group behaviour when you see a single photo that's sent from one person to another.

No. You wouldn't think of adolescents collectively engaging in this form of group behaviour. In terms of image analytics, I have developed a template consisting of 35 different variables, ranging from background analytics to detailed analysis of the subject in the image. One of the interesting findings was likely evidence of 'sleepover' visible in the background, sexted images displaying a combination of sleeping bags, mattresses on the floor and three or four 13-year-olds, all facilitated by a webcam.

The results of the study will inform an educational approach to this area. Another construct within cyber psychology is called the 'privacy paradox'. Kids know that they shouldn't do something online, but they feel compelled to do it anyway. When you talk to them one-on-one or in a focus group, you can ask, "why did you take that image and put it up as your profile picture on a social networking site when clearly it's not a suitable image?" and they will answer, "but I only shared it with my friends." To an adult generation, privacy means telling your best friend or your partner. To this age group, privacy is only sharing with about 450 of your best friends on a social network.

Why is there so much interest in this field?

Perhaps because cyber-psychological insight is the missing link in an age of technology. I think that technology has for too long lived on a diet of data, devices and tech experts. My job as a cyber psychologist is to factor in what the cyber security guys like to call the weakest link in any secure system: the human.

This really is a paradigm shift in terms of how we approach cyberspace. Technology is not a passive transactional medium. It's not the same as the telegraph or the telephone. Cyber psychologists focus on constructs such as presence and immersion in cyber environments — that feeling of being there. It's important not just to think of technology as the Internet, but to conceptualize cyberspace as a place, somewhere where you can go — forums, chat rooms, the World Wide Web — these are cyber environments.

In a real-world context, you have police on the street, you have parents, older brothers and sisters, teachers, neighbours and shopkeepers who will say, "Don't do that. That's not the right thing to do." Online, you don't have those real world authority figures. It's no wonder that we get what I call cyber-feral behaviour or cyber-juvenile delinquency. There is a perception that no one is in charge online, and that's because the reality is that no one is in charge.

How dangerous has this become?

There was a case recently of a young girl who was recruited via a social media platform and effectively groomed into a life of prostitution. She was friended by an offender, who cultivated a relationship with her online and groomed her for sextortion purposes. Back in the day, a young runaway might have ended up in a central train station and those who wanted to exploit or take advantage would look for a young runaway who was on their own and looking vulnerable. But now, the same criminal population who wants to exploit young girls or boys can operate online. So now it's not the runaway at central station who is a high-risk victim, it's the young girl who goes online to say 'I hate my life, I hate my parents, or I've just broken up with my boyfriend', and perhaps posts unsuitable images. The point is that victim vulnerability can be expressed in posts or images, and, unfortunately, those with criminal intent can profile, too.

Your work has inspired a CSI spin-off show. What's your involvement?

I'm a producer on the show, so I'm very involved in the process. Everything from coming up with ideas and brainstorming to the cyber psychological aspects of the scripts and making sure that everything is as authentic as possible. Following every episode, CBS broadcasts a two- or three-minute piece called The Takeaway with Mary Aiken where I explain underlying themes, such as cyber security or safety educational messages in an episode — things that are going to help mums or young kids be more aware in cyberspace. I think CBS has done really a great job with the show. They're very respectful of the process and very conscientious about how everything is portrayed.

What's important for police to know about your work?

I would recommend that police are offered some training in this area. Whenever I work with a group of law enforcement officers, they seem to be very pleased with the cyber psychology insight piece — perhaps because they feel that it helps them to get a greater understanding of cyber behaviour — to understand the victim, understand the offender, and understand cyberspace. Hopefully additional insight may help to catch the bad guys and reach out to victims.

In terms of negative cyber behavior, it is important to remember that technology in itself is not good or bad, it simply mediates human behavior — and it's either used well or used poorly.

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