Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Date of Degree

9-2025

Document Type

Doctoral Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy

Program

Psychology

Advisor

Mark Fondacaro

Committee Members

Kelly McWilliams

Charles Stone

Jeannette Sutton

Stephanie Cardenas

Subject Categories

Psychology

Keywords

crime media, fear, ESM, safety app, NYC, notification

Abstract

Mobile crime alert platforms promise to enhance personal and public safety by delivering frequent notifications about nearby dangers—claims that, until now, have not been experimentally tested. For-profit applications like Citizen deliver real-time, geo-targeted push notifications about nearby crime incidents to over 9 million users, often operating outside the bounds of institutional oversight. Although marketed as tools to enhance awareness and protection, these platforms may simultaneously empower users through information while also potentially amplifying anxiety, heightening threat perceptions, and eroding trust in community. Despite their increasing prominence and integration into public safety communications, the psychological and behavioral impacts of mobile crime alerts remain largely untested experimentally.

A sample of 160 adults residing in New York City was randomly assigned to receive either crime alerts (e.g., burglaries, shootings, assaults) or neutral non-crime alerts (e.g., community events, animal sightings, transit updates) as part of a five-day protocol. Grounded in cultivation theory and social cognitive theory, it was predicted that crime alerts, compared to non-crime alerts, would (H1) increase perceived threat of victimization, (H2) increase general anxiety, (H3) increase safety self-efficacy, and (H4) decrease collective efficacy. v

Although no conventionally significant experimental effects were observed across outcomes, exploratory analyses revealed that individual and contextual factors—such as victimization history, neighborhood perceptions, and crime news exposure—were strong predictors of psychological responses to mobile alerts. These findings suggest that individual context may play a greater role in shaping responses to mobile media messages than the alert content itself. This study’s randomized, multiday mobile experience sampling design fills critical gaps in the literature on new media, digital safety technologies, and mass communication. The findings challenge both claims that brief exposure to crime alerts uniformly empowers users and concerns about the harm of repeated crime alert exposure. As public-private partnerships in mobile safety technologies expand, such as the partnership between New York City and Citizen, this study’s results underscore the need for evidence-based evaluation, design, and ethical oversight of commercial and institutional risk and health communication platforms and practices.

Download

Included in

Psychology Commons

Share

COinS