Dealing with privacy threats and adopting appropriate strategies to manage personal information have become crucial challenges for internet users. While adaptive problem-focused coping (APFC) has been extensively discussed in the literature on information privacy, little is known about maladaptive emotion-focused coping (MEFC). This paper proposes that individuals employ privacy protection motivation (a form of APFC) and privacy cynicism (a form of MEFC), according to their threat and coping appraisals. These two coping strategies will then influence their behaviour regarding the disclosure of personal information on the internet. Offering an empirical analysis of 346 samples of survey data from China, this paper reveals that privacy cynicism, which is mainly affected by deep concerns about privacy and high self-efficacy but low response efficacy, and inconsistency between users’ motivations for protecting their privacy and their actual disclosure behavior are the reasons for the privacy paradox. This study provides crucial theoretical support and practical guidance for the privacy management of internet users’ information.

应对隐私威胁并采取适当的策略来管理个人信息已成为互联网用户面临的关键挑战。虽然适应性问题聚焦应对（APFC）在信息隐私文献中得到了广泛讨论，但人们对适应不良情绪聚焦应对（MEFC）知之甚少。本文提出，个人根据他们的威胁和应对评估，采用隐私保护动机（APFC 的一种形式）和隐私愤世嫉俗（MEFC 的一种形式）。这两种应对策略将影响他们在互联网上披露个人信息的行为。本文通过对我国346个调查数据样本的实证分析，揭示了隐私愤世嫉俗的影响，主要是由于对隐私的深度关注、自我效能感高但回应效能低，以及用户保护隐私的动机与保护隐私的动机不一致等因素造成的。他们的实际披露行为是隐私悖论的原因。该研究为互联网用户信息隐私管理提供了重要的理论支撑和实践指导。