People infuse their passwords with autobiographical information

ABSTRACT

Passwords might unlock more than our computer accounts. A New York Times Magazine described anecdotes of people who infused their passwords with autobiographical information [Urbina, I. (2014, November 20). The Secret Life of Passwords. New York Times. Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/19/magazine/the-secret-life-of-passwords.html]. We suspected people infused their passwords with autobiographical information so they could privately remember that information. Across two studies we took a systematic approach to address the extent to which people infused passwords with autobiographical information and the functions that information served. We also examined the self-reported consequences of people infusing their passwords with autobiographical information. Across both studies, 41.6–71.1% of people infused their passwords with autobiographical memories; in Study 2, 9.3% of people infused their passwords with episodic future thoughts. People who infused their password with autobiographical information reported that information served identity, social, and directive functions, and they created their password to remember that information. These studies show that people do not simply use passwords to unlock their computer accounts. Some people might use passwords as mementos to cue autobiographical information.

KEYWORDS:

• Autobiographical memory
• password
• episodic future thought

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 We excluded responses from these analyses that were 30 or greater.

2 We coded those subjects who responded “yes” to their password relating to a specific event from their past as an episodic autobiographical memory. We coded those subjects who responded “no” to their password relating to a specific event from their past, and “yes” to either their password containing information related to themselves, their password containing non-specific information related to themselves, or both, as autobiographical knowledge.

3 Note, the percentages of people infusing their passwords with autobiographical information are the percentages of the entire sample. The percentages presented on Table 2 are the percentages of the people who were presented each item. Recall, only subjects who responded “yes” to Item 3 in Table 1 were presented items 4 and 5.

4 We also conducted the correlations we conducted in Study 1 between the functions of the autobiographical information and the extent to which people created their passwords to reminisce, and the extent to which they think of that information when they type their password. These correlations show the same pattern as Table 2. These analyses are presented in Table S11.