Third‐person effect, gender differences, pornography exposure and support for restriction of pornography

Perceived Harm of Online Drug-Encouraging Messages

“…The greater the self-other difference in the perceived effects, the more likely one would be to support rectifying measures. This supported previous research that the third-person perceptual gap of antisocial messages predicted support for censoring and restricting such content to protect the others whom they perceived as more vulnerable (Gunther, 1995;Hoffner & Buchanan, 2002;Hoffner et al, 1999;Lo & Paddon, 2001;McLeod, Detenber, & Eveland, 2001;McLeod, Eveland, & Nathanson, 1997;Rojas et al, 1996;Wei & Lo, 2007;Wu & Koo, 2001). A greater third-person perceptual gap showed that they perceived others to be more easily affected by the antisocial drug-encouraging messages than themselves, so they supported more rectifying measures to protect them against the harmful drug-encouraging effects.…”

Porn laid bare: Gay men, pornography and bareback sex

“…(18–25 HIV Negative cohort 1)Although in at least one group, the absent other was defined as of a lower socio-economic status with limited education: Yeah I think that would depend on the level of education of the individual watching the porn … I think our backgrounds, highly educated, we’ve gone to university, it would be quite interesting for me to see what somebody who had not finished their GCSEs but didn’t receive proper sexual health education at school would say. (18–25 HIV Negative cohort 1)Such displacement is commonly found within third-person effects research, which centres on textual representations that are coded as physically, psychologically or socially problematic or risky (see McLeod et al., 1997 see also Lo and Paddon, 2001). These texts can include films and television programmes that include sexual or violent content, or which feature ‘anti-social’ or ‘risk’ behaviours such as excessive alcohol consumption, smoking and taking drugs.…”

Perceptual Differences in Assessing the Harm of Patronizing Adult Entertainment Clubs

“…Other studies sought to investigate the effects of public attitudes toward restrictions on pornography on support for restrictions (Yanget al, 2003). The Lo and Paddon (2001) study showed that the more negative effects the respondents perceived media pornography has on self and others, the more likely they would support restrictions on pornography. In the case of adult entertainment venues, as patronage is considered socially undesirable, the selfother perceptual discrepancy should have the utility to predict behavior.…”