The purpose of the study is to reveal how hypocrisy induction and self-construal theory influence attitudes toward the public service announcement urging against illegal downloading and the willingness to stop illegal downloading. As time goes on, illegal downloading has been rampant due to the advancement of technology, which motivates the government agencies involved in protecting intellectual property to conduct various campaigns. However, despite of their constant efforts, the previous methods such as legal punishment or monetary penalties categorized as an external factor have been ineffective to prevent illegal downloading. Therefore, the current study suggested a new strategy using hypocrisy induction and self-construal theory considered as an internal factor which spontaneously enocourage people to stop illegal downloading. To test hypotheses, a 3 (types of hypocrisy: hypocrisy induction by independent means vs. hypocrisy induction by interdependent means vs. control) X 2 (types of message in public service announcements: a personal perspective vs. a social perspective) between-subjects design was employed. The results showed that hypocrisy induction significantly affected attitudes toward the public service announcements and the willingness to stop illegal downloading. In addition, the interaction effect between types of hypocrisy and types of message was significant. Therefore, the study concluded that hypocrisy induction and self-construal theory would play an important role in preventing illegal downloading.Advertisin
