"Decision Fatigue and Cybersecurity Behaviors: A Qualitative Study of University Students"

Abstract

This study investigates the impact of decision fatigue on university students' cybersecurity behaviors, revealing that cognitive overload resulting from academic stress significantly increases their vulnerability to phishing attacks, password reuse, and other security risks. Drawing on empirical evidence, we show that fatigued students are 42% more likely to fall for phishing attempts (Hadlington, 2017) and 3.5 times more prone to password reuse (Stobert & Biddle, 2018), particularly during high-stress periods like exam weeks. Our analysis of institutional practices reveals critical gaps, with only 22% of universities addressing fatigue in cybersecurity policies  (EDUCAUSE, 2023). We evaluate three effective interventions: (1) adaptive authentication systems that reduced login-related help desk tickets by 57%  (Arias-Cabarcos et al., 2019) (2) AI-driven behavior monitoring that predicted 79% of fatigue-related breaches (Pisani et al., 2019) ; and (3) cross-departmental collaboration models that improved incident response times by 40%  (U. C. Report, 2023). Building on our previous work on self-regulation and phishing susceptibility (Waqas et al., 2023)We propose a comprehensive framework integrating temporal risk analysis, stress-aware training protocols, and unified monitoring dashboards. These findings highlight the urgent need for educational institutions to incorporate cognitive science principles into cybersecurity strategies, moving beyond technical solutions to address human factors in digital protection. The study contributes both theoretical insights into fatigue-driven security behaviors and practical, evidence-based recommendations for institutional implementation.