Efficacy beliefs in third-person effects

Abstract

People generally believe they are less susceptible than others to influences of media, and a growing body of research implicates such biased processing, or third-person perception, in public support for censorship, a type of third-person effect. The current study extends research of the third-person effect by studying two efficacy-related concepts in the context of sexual content in films. Analysis of cross-sectional data from 1,012 Singaporeans suggest that people exhibit self-other asymmetries of efficacy beliefs: They believe others are less capable than they are of self-regulation and that censorship is more effective at restricting others’ access to sexual content in films. Furthermore, the former belief was directly related to the belief that others are more susceptible to negative influence, and thus was indirectly related to support for censorship; whereas, the latter belief was directly related to support for censorship. Results may help distinguish the roles of self-regulation and government censorship as bases of local media standards.