Cybersecurity Awareness and Threat Perception Constructs

This study maps how the constructs of cybersecurity awareness and threat perception are operationalized in survey-based empirical research. Using Web of Science and Scopus records, we analyze the thematic evolution of a survey-focused corpus and conduct a construct-level analysis of screened studies by coding contexts, threat types, and extracted constructs. We then examine their interrelations through bipartite and construct-similarity networks. The findings show a shift from general cybersecurity and information security awareness toward more specific models of phishing, privacy, data breaches, identity theft, online scams, and social engineering. Across these contexts, perceived vulnerability, perceived severity, self-efficacy, response efficacy, knowledge, attitude, trust, privacy concern, and protective behavior form a recurring conceptual core. However, similar constructs appear under different labels and are applied inconsistently across user groups and threat scenarios. The paper provides a structured overview of the construct space and highlights the need to more clearly distinguish among awareness, knowledge, perception, efficacy, and behavior.