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Institutional incongruence and unauthorized copying in Poland
Author(s) -
Czetwertyński Sławomir
Publication year - 2022
Publication title -
the journal of world intellectual property
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.334
H-Index - 8
eISSN - 1747-1796
pISSN - 1422-2213
DOI - 10.1111/jwip.12203
Subject(s) - cognitive dissonance , copying , conceptualization , context (archaeology) , empirical research , social psychology , psychology , computer science , political science , law , epistemology , paleontology , philosophy , artificial intelligence , biology
Abstract The aim of this article was to find out how the cognitive dissonance resulting from the occurrence of institutional incongruence in the context of copying information goods in online society is reduced. The implementation of this goal required conceptualization work and empirical research. The conceptual part was based on the theory of cognitive dissonance by Festinger as well as works on the concept of institutional congruence. The essence of the conceptualization work was the formulation of the concept of institutional incongruence, which leads to a cognitive dissonance that requires reduction. The empirical research conducted on Polish internet users in August 2020 was designed to allow to determine whether there is an institutional incongruence in the area of copying information goods, and how the possible dissonance resulting from such incongruence is reduced. A survey study conducted on a random sample of 1000 respondents (with a standard error of 3%). The survey took the form of a questionnaire distributed among respondents via the Badanie‐Opinii.pl research panel, property of the Biostat Research and Development Centre. Empirical research has shown that institutional incongruence is largely imaginary (a kind of cognitive bias). In the context of dissonance reduction, there were found several forms of it: (1) the downplaying of the phenomenon of unauthorized copying, (2) an attitude that completely ignores the problem of unauthorized copying, and (3) an attitude that assumes that any form of unauthorized copying is simply “piracy.”