A Replication Study on Users’ Congruence with Piracy Deterrence Messages

This paper is a partial replication of the study presented by Kajzer et al. (2014). The original study investigated the relationships between individual characteristics (including the big five personality traits, Machiavellianism, and social desirability) and the perceived effectiveness (i.e., persuasiveness) of five different security awareness message themes, one of which was deterrence in the context of piracy. The original study uses a sample size of 293 MTurkers. In this study, we replicated examining the effects of individual characteristics on the effectiveness of the piracy-deterrence security awareness message within the context of college students. Considering that college students engage in pirating various forms of digital content, including music, videos, books, and movies, it is important to address this deviant behavior on campuses. Using a different sample (university students; n =117) than the original study’s sample (MTurkers) allowed us to test the generalizability of the original study’s findings. For data analysis, we used covariance-based structural equation modeling (CB-SEM), a statistical technique different than the original study’s. CB-SEM is a theory-testing (i.e., confirmatory) analysis technique that is useful to check the replicability of the original study and to account for measurement errors. Like the original study, we found that agreeableness and neuroticism are positively associated with the effectiveness of deterrence messages while extraversion, conscientiousness, openness, and Machiavellianism have no relationships with it. Unlike the original study, we found that social desirability has a significant negative relationship with deterrence messages’ effectiveness. These results generally align with those of the original study.