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The growing number of anti-terrorism policies has elevated public concerns about discrimination. Within the context of airport security screening, the current study examines how American travelers value the principle of equal protection by quantifying the "equity premium" that they are willing to sacrifice to avoid screening procedures that result in differential treatments. In addition, we applied the notion of procedural justice to explore the effect of alternative selective screening procedures on the value of equal protection. Two-hundred and twenty-two respondents were randomly assigned to one of three selective screening procedures: (1) randomly, (2) using behavioral indicators, or (3) based on demographic characteristics. They were asked to choose between airlines using either an equal or a discriminatory screening procedure. While the former requires all passengers to be screened in the same manner, the latter mandates all passengers undergo a quick primary screening and, in addition, some passengers are selected for a secondary screening based on a predetermined selection criterion. Equity premiums were quantified in terms of monetary cost, wait time, convenience, and safety compromise. Results show that equity premiums varied greatly across respondents, with many indicating little willingness to sacrifice to avoid inequitable screening, and a smaller minority willing to sacrifice anything to avoid the discriminatory screening. The selective screening manipulation was effective in that equity premiums were greater under selection by demographic characteristics compared to the other two procedures.

Past research indicates that people have strong concerns about their information privacy. This study applies multi-attribute utility theory to conceptualize the concern for smartphone privacy and examine how people value smartphone privacy protection. We also investigated how the value of privacy varied by the identity of a privacy attacker and individual user characteristics. Respondents were given a hypothetical choice between an encrypted smartphone and a regular one. The encrypted smartphone increases the level of privacy protection at the cost of lower usability, greater monthly service payments, slower speed, and additional inconvenience. Respondents were asked to simply make binary choices between hypothetical pairs of smartphone configurations. The results show that respondents were willing to make non-trivial sacrifices for smartphone privacy protection. Interestingly, specifying the identity of an attacker collecting information decreased the value of privacy protection compared to not specifying the identity of the attacker. We also observed effects of individual user characteristics, including general privacy concern, age, and self-reported political attitude, on the value of smartphone privacy protection. These results offer greater insight on how people value their privacy

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