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Overrating the X-Rating: The Third-

Person Perception and Support for


Censorship of Pornography

by Albert C. Gunther, University of Wisconsin-Madison

Research has producedplentiful evidence of the third-person


perception-the tendency f o r people to think others are more
injluenced by mass media than they are themselves. But until now
there has been scant evidence of the effects of thatperceptual bias.
Consistent with past third-person eflectfindings, the data in this
study indicate that a substantial majority 0 f U . S . adults see others
as more adversely injluenced by pornography than themselves. I n
addition, the results show that peoples' supportfor pornography
restrictionsparallels the discrepancy they perceive between effect
on selfand effect on others.

Censorship of mass media content is often justified by the argument that the
message will have undesirable effects on society. Oddly though, while believ-
ing that controversial forms of expression such as defamation, fictional vio-
lence, sedition or explicit sex should be censored for the good of the public,
many people have no qualms about viewing such content themselves.
This curious discrepancy, often called the third-person effect (Davison,
1983), has two components. The first suggests that people are prone to a per-
ceptual bias, leading them to estimate that a communication will have more
influence on others than on themselves. The second component proposes that
people may react in some way according to this estimate of larger effects on
others. In other words, people tend to consider themselves less vulnerable to
harmful influences, and their support for censorship may be rooted instead in
their concern about effects on others.
The first component, the perceptual bias, is a robust finding. There is plenti-
ful empirical evidence of the tendency to perceive greater media influence on
others than on the self. People have exhibited this phenomenon in judgments

Albert C. Gunther is a n associate professor in the Department of Agricultural Journalism at the Uni-
versity of Wisconsin-Madison, The author would like to express appreciation to the University of
Wisconsin L & S Survey Center for data collection, and to Lulu Rodriguez for assistance with data
analysis and preparation o f tables.
Copyright 0 1995Journal ofcommunication 45(1), Winter. 0021-9916/95/$5.00

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Journal of Communication, Winter 1995

about the miniseries Amerika (Lasorsa, 19891, coverage of apartheid demonstra-


tions (Mutz, 19891, product advertising (Gunther & Thorson, 1992; Gunther &
Mundy, 19931, political advertising (Rucinski & Salmon, 19901, defamatory
news articles (Cohen, Mutz, Price & Gunther, 1988; Gunther, 1991) and broad-
casts about Middle East conflict (Perloff, 1989; Vallone, Ross & Lepper, 1985).
While the perceptual bias in the third-person hypothesis is intriguing and
well documented, its importance depends crucially on its consequences. Is it,
for example, the perception of greater negative influence on the morals of oth-
ers that motivates people to support censorship of pornographic media con-
tent?’ There has been little effort and even less success in documenting or
explaining such consequences even though they constitute the important sec-
ond component to the third-person effect. Thus they are the principal focus of
this study.

Dichotomizing Self and Others

Among several explanations for the perceptual bias, perhaps the most funda-
mental is that of biased optimism-the tendency for people to think they are
not as likely to experience negative events and influences as are others (Wein-
stein, 1989). This bias, it is argued, stems from the need to sustain a positive
self-image. When individuals in a representative sample are asked to rate their
own driving, for example, between 75% and 90% say their driving is safer than
the average person’s (Svenson, 1981). People are motivated to reinforce self-
esteem by perceiving themselves as smarter or better off than the majority of
their peers, and thus they see others as more vulnerable to media content.
As for the consequences of these perceptions, theoretical arguments and
empirical evidence support the idea that a person’s opinions and behaviors are
sometimes “sociotropic”responses, that is, determined by his or her percep-
tions of others (Kinder & Kiewiet, 1981; Mutz, 1992). But the third-person
effect postulates a more specific phenomenon than the general sociotropic
case. That is, it is effect on others relative to effect on self that underlies the
third-person effect. And more specifically still, it is the magnitude of difference
between people’s estimations of negative influence on others and on them-
selves that leads to some reaction in attitude or behavior.
These two components of the third-person hypothesis-a perception, and an
effect on attitudes or behavior-can be linked in the following way. Prone to
biased optimism, people feel that whatever message effect they incur them-
selves is relatively benign, an acceptable personal response. The greater nega-
tive effect seen in others, however, is likely to be perceived as an unfortunate
and undesirable social effect. As the perceived distance between acceptable

I There is some irony in this outcome, in that the real communication effect “may thus be due not to
the reaction of the ostensible audience but rather to the behavior of those who anticipate, or think
they perceive, some reaction on the part of others” (Davison, 1983, p. 3).

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Overrating the X-Ruting

effect on self and unacceptable effect on others grows larger, people will feel
that the social-level effect grows more harmful, and that something should be
done about it (Gunther, 1991).
Past studies have ventured explanations for responses based on personal vs.
social-level perceptions. Self-interest, it is argued, influences opinion and behav-
ior largely when the benefits are clear and “unobstructed by competing consid-
erations” (Green & Gerken, 1989, p. 12). By contrast, sociotropic responses
may result from altruistic concern for the welfare of others. But people may
also act on their social-level perceptions because of indirect benefits to the
self-the probability, for example, that improved social conditions will eventu-
ally improve one’s personal condition. In the latter case, self-interest is also
motivating social-level responses that would benefit the well-being of others
only incidentally (Kinder & Kiewiet, 1981).
Since the optimistic bias suggests that people will consider themselves rela-
tively immune to harmful media effects, the incentive to change attitudes or
take actions on behalf of personal well-being is probably not compelling. How-
ever, to the extent that people see negative social effects as resulting from
media content, one would expect them to favor steps to prevent such effects,
either out of concern for the well-being of others, or because failure to contain
such effects will make society a riskier environment for the self.

Backgrounding Pornography

Contemporary debate over pornography focuses on just such negative out-


comes-that pornography, for example, may encourage rape, the denigration
of women, or the general breakdown of public morals. Legal definitions of the
consequences of pornography are expanding to include not just offensiveness,
but also harm (Wilson, Linz & Randall, 1990), exemplified by the argument that
pornography violates the civil rights of women (Downs, 1990). Thus, on the
assumption that the perception of negative social consequences is a necessary
condition for the third-person phenomenon (Gunther & Mundy, 19931, this
study will focus on the potentially harmful effects of pornography.
Whatever its evils or virtues, pornography presents one of the most challeng-
ing topics in the study of public opinion. It is difficult to define and difficult to
measure. A great deal of empirical research (Donnerstein & Berkowitz, 1981;
Zillmann & Bryant, 1989) and public policy debate (Downs, 1990; Randall,
1990) has focused specifically on the quantity and nature of its consequences.
But pornography is useful as a context for this research area because the partic-
ularly harmful social influences that people perceive as resulting from porno-
graphic material might be expected to have the most direct bearing on how
much they support its regulation.
However, opinions about pornography are additionally challenging to study
because they arise from such a complexity of circumstances. Along with the
perception of pornography’s harmful effects, sentiment in favor of restricting
pornography may result from gender differences, political ideology, attitudes

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.Journal of Communicataon, Winter 1995

toward freedom of expression, and, of course, one’s own exposure to pornog-


raphy. Women are more likely to favor restrictions on pornography (Herrman
& Bordner, 1983; U.S. Commission on Obscenity and Pornography, 1970) and
political conservatives have been long-time advocates of that position, although
recently liberal and/or feminist individuals find themselves in the same camp.
Attitudes toward First Amendment issues and freedom of expression in general
are also likely to shape attitudes toward restrictions on pornographic content.2
In addition, one would expect that those who indicate more exposure to por-
nography would be less likely to support its regulation (Howard, Reifler &
Liptzin, 1970; U S . Commission on Obscenity and Pornography, 1970; News-
week, 1985).
To date no research has tested the third-person hypothesis in the context of
pornography, nor has it been tested in a large-scale population. Many analyses
have been experimental. Parameters in existing survey research represent aca-
demic campuses or communities, where education or other factors may bias
the outcome. To provide greater generalizability, as well as a valid comparison
of respondents’ aggregate estimates of effects on self and their corresponding
judgments about other people in general, this study employs survey data from
a representative national sample.
The study also addresses a nagging question of internal validity-whether
the perceptual bias might be just an artifact of question order. Respondents are
typically asked parallel questions about media effects on themselves and on
others. Aware of the comparison they are asked to make, people may simply
adjust their second response to cast themselves in a more desirable, less persua-
sible, posture.
Thus the survey was designed in pursuit of a number of goals: to measure
perceived effects of pornography at personal and social levels in order to docu-
ment any perceptual bias;3to test for artifacts of question order; to look for evi-
dence of a connection between the perceptual bias and support for
pornography restrictions; and to incorporate other likely predictors of attitudes
that might elaborate on the relationship. Two hypotheses, corresponding to the
two components of the third-person effect model, were tested in this research.
One proposes the existence of a perceptual bias-that people will estimate
X-rated media content to have a greater negative effect on others than on them-
selves. The second suggests a resulting effect on opinion-that the magnitude
o f the perceptual bias will be positively related to support for restrictions on
pornography.

Such a relationship will likely be moderated, however, by the fact that while people generally
agree strongly with the abstract principle of free speech, their support drops sharply when consider-
ing particular situations (McCloskey & Brill, 1983).
It should be noted that perceptual bias can only be measured at the aggregate level in this study.
Any individual estimating little effect on self and more effect on others may be quite correct in
doing so. But if a majority of people demonstrate the third-person perception, then some portion
of that aggregate judgment must be in error.

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Overruting the X-Ruting

Measuring Perception and Attitude

Respondents were 648 adults age 18 or over randomly sampled from the conti-
nental U S . population. The data were collected as part of a computer-assisted
telephone survey run by the University of Wisconsin L&S Survey Center, which
conducts about 50 interviews a week in a rolling cross-sectional sample. The
items included in this analysis ran from October 18, 1989, to January 23, 1990.
Trained interviewers administered the survey and made u p to seven callbacks
to numbers not answering. The response rate was a rather low 46%.* However,
comparisons based on key demographic variables such as age, gender, and
income indicated that these respondents did not differ significantly from those
in the General Social Survey and the National Survey of Families and House-
holds.
Midway through the survey the issue of X-rated media content was intro-
duced, and respondents were asked about their own exposure to such con-
tent-specifically how often, if ever, they had seen or come across X-rated
films or magazine^.^
Immediately following this item they answered a series of questions about
their perceptions of the effects of such content on themselves and on other
people in generaL6 Respondents were asked about the effect of X-rated films or
magazines on their own moral values concerning sex, and on other people's
moral values concerning sex. They also answered about the effect on their
own attitudes toward the opposite sex, about the attitudes of men in general
toward women, and about the attitudes of women in general toward men.
Each item was accompanied by the following response scale: (a) a large nega-
tive effect; (b) a small negative effect; (c) no effect at all; (d) a small positive
effect; (e) a large positive effect.' Although the two items measuring perceived
effects of X-rated content-moral values concerning sex and attitudes toward
the opposite sex-appear to tap different dimensions, they were nevertheless

' The denominator in this response calculation includes refusals, numbers that were busy or not
answered at each call, and numbers that were answered, but where the selected respondent was
not aVdihbk in any of the Seven callbacks
' The phrase "X-rated films o r magazines" wab incorporated to avoid connotations of the term por-
nography, and to accommodate time constraints in the survey. It is plausible that different respon-
dents made different interpretations of the phrase "X-rated" content. However, it is safe to say that
each was estimating effects of the Same content on self and others. Thus, while the general word-
ing might have affected the validity or reliability of individual responses, it is unlikely to have
affected the self-other difference scores, which are the important Factor in testing third-person phe-
nomena.
f> Questions about effects on one's self were posed slightly differently for people who said they had
never had any exposure to X-rated material. They were asked "If for Some reason you were
exposed to films or magazines with X-rated content . . . ."
' Questions focusing on more specific positive and negative effects of pornography would have
heen desirable, but again time constraints required framing them in this way. Interviewers were cau
tioned to be alert to difficulties because of the sensitive nature of the items concerning sex, but
they reported almost no unease or hesitation to answer. This experience is consistent with past
research (DeLamater, 1982).

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Journal of Communication, Winter 1995

substantially intercorrelated. An index of perceived pornography effects com-


bining the two measures was used for most of the hypothesis tests, although
for some of the results these two items are described separately as well.
Responses to the items for self produced good reliability (a= ,691; reliability of
estimates of both effects for others was somewhat higher (a= 32).
The computer-assisted system permitted some refinements. The attitude item
was keyed to a respondent’s gender so that men were asked about the effect
on their own attitudes toward women, and women about their own attitudes
toward men. Also, to provide a check on the possible order effect of asking
people the same questions about both themselves and others, the computer
randomly assigned respondents to a question sequence that either asked about
self first or others first.
Support for restrictions on pornography was measured with a four-item
index adapted from Thompson, Chaffee and Oshagan (1990): “I support legisla-
tion to prohibit the sale of pornographic materials,” “Anyone who wants to
have pornographic materials should be allowed to,” “The government has
more important things to do than regulate pornography” and “We should have
a panel to screen offensive material before it is allowed to be sold in this com-
munity.” Each statement was accompanied by Likert-scale responses ranging
from strongly agree to strongly disagree. The index of attitude toward regula-
tion of pornography also showed acceptable internal reliability (a= .69).
In a separate part of the survey respondents answered another Likert-scaled
question about their support for freedom of speech: “We should have no restric-
tions on freedom of speech or expression in this country.”The survey also
included demographic measures: age, sex, education, race, religion, political
affiliation and whether or not there were children living in the respondent’s
household.

Confirming Perceptual Bias

The question measuring exposure to X-rated content resulted in findings consis-


tent with other research (Bryant & Brown, 1989; Thompson, et al., 1990).
About one-fourth of the population (26%) said they had never seen or come
across X-rated media content. Those reporting occasional exposure constituted
by far the largest group (62%), while another 11% reported seeing X-rated mate-
rial somewhat often or very often.
It should also be noted that 2% of respondents did not know or chose not to
answer either question about the effects of X-rated material on themselves, and
4.5% did not respond to the items about effects on others.RRespondents who
answered at least one but not all of the effects items in either category were

” A t-test showed no significant difference between those respondents omitted and those included in
the analysis in their attitudes toward restriction of pornography. Nor did they differ on most other
attributes, although they were more likely to be women, and to be somewhat less educated.

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Overrating the X-Rating

Table 1. Mean Estimates of effect of X-Rated Content on Self and Others, and for
Subgroups Based on Exposure and Gender (Standard Deviations in Parentheses)
N Self Others Difference t-value
Effect on moral values 550 3.24 [.78) 3.55 [1.28) .31 5.19*
Effect on attitudes 525 3.17 1.66) 3.63 (1.13) .46 8.72*
Combined effect 492 3.23 1.64) 3.62 11.07) .39 8.36*
Exposure
None 115 3.37 1.60) 3.63 (1.19) .26 2.33**
Some 319 3.22 1.63) 3.63 11.02) .41 7.52*
Gender
Male 230 3.08 1.601 3.49 (1.071 .41 6.57*
Female 262 3.36 i.65j 3.73 ii .07j .37 5.42*
Note: Items are recoded so that 1 = large positive effect, 2 = small positive effect, 3 = no
effect at all, 4 = small negative effect, and 5 = large negative effect. Significance levels
were calculated using paired t-tests.
*p i,001 **p i,051.

retained in the regression analysis by substituting the mean score for their miss-
ing value.
Hypothesis 1 proposed that people will estimate X-rated media content to
have a greater negative effect on others than on themselves. The data sup-
ported this difference in judgments quite clearly. A majority of respondents,
61%, perceived others to be more negatively influenced by X-rated material
than themselves. Nineteen percent reported no difference in effect, and 20%
perceived more negative effect on themselves.
The significance of these differences is reported in Table 1. Paired t-tests
affirmed that people did perceive that others would be more influenced by por-
nography in both the combined effect index and in the individual measures.
Furthermore, the finding was consistent among subgroups. Both males and
females exhibited the perceptual bias, but males estimated less negative effect
overall, and they saw themselves as being only slightly negatively influenced
by pornography. Interestingly, respondents who reported no exposure to por-
nography demonstrated the smallest third-person pattern, primarily because
they estimated that they would be negatively affected by X-rated material quite
a bit if they were exposed to it themselves.
A major methodological challenge to third-person phenomenon findings lies
in the potential order effect when people knowingly compare themselves to
others. However, random assignment of question order in this design revealed
no order effect. The difference between estimated effects on self and others
was the same whether respondents were asked about themselves first (M = .41)
or others first (M = .37), t(490) = .49, ns. Respondents’ scale scores also did not
vary by question order. R e s t s o f the two groups showed no difference in esti-
mates of the effect of pornography on self whether respondents answered
about self first (M = 5.60) or about self after answering about others (M = 5.57)
t(605) = .24, ns. Similarly, there was no difference in estimates of the effect of
pornography on others whether respondents answered about others first ( M =

33
Journal of Communication, Winter 1995

7.02) or others after answering about self (M = 7.26) t(502) = .83, ns. Thus
there is good evidence that the side-by-side questions did not produce artifac-
tual contrast effects.

Correlating Perception and Attitude

Hypothesis 2 proposed that the magnitude of the perceptual bias will be posi-
tively related to support for restrictions on pornography. This hypothesis was
tested with a multiple regression equation (see the first two columns of Table
2 ) assessing the role of various factors in predicting support for restrictions.
The independent variable of particular interest in this equation is the magni-
tude of the perceptual bias, calculated as the difference between perceived
effect on others and on self. But the independent influence of perceived effect
on self has also been partialled out, because one would expect self-interest,
and the mere extent of effect, to have some part in the outcome. An array of
control variables was included in the equation.
As expected, those who supported free speech opposed regulation. Females,
those with a religious affiliation, and those reporting no exposure to pornogra-
phy were more likely to favor its regulation-also no surprise. More perceived
negative effect on self also predicted more support for regulation. But when
controlling for these additional variables, the magnitude of perceptual bias was
significantly related to opinion favoring pornography restrictions-support for
Hypothesis 2 .
However, while it supports Hypothesis 2 , the role of the perceptual bias is
overshadowed somewhat. In particular, people were more responsive to per-
ceived effects on themselves when considering pornography restrictions. This
is an important point. In testing effect-on-opinion, the full sample may partially
obscure the third-person process, because such a test incorporates a substantial
number of cases that do not demonstrate the perceptual bias. That is, the full
sample includes many people (39%) who reported no difference between them-
selves and others, or even more negative effect on themselves, and thus failed
to demonstrate the first component of the third-person effect.
Therefore, the same regression analysis was applied to those people (three-
fifths of the sample) who did perceive that others would be more negatively
affected than themselves.’ The results (columns 3 and 4 in Table 2 ) are little dif-
ferent in general, but the second component of the third-person effect is far
more prominent. Among people who demonstrated the hypothesized third-per-
son perception, the magnitude of perceptual bias is a highly significant predic-
tor, with at least as much influence on support for restrictions as perceived
effect on self.

This subsample reported a higher level of education, tt646) = 4.15, p < ,001, but did not differ sig-
nificantly from the rest of the sample on other relevant variables, including the support for restric-
tions index.

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Overrating the X-Rating

Table 2. Unstandardized Regression Coefficients for Factors PredlctingSupport for


Regulation of Pornography (Standard Error in Parentheses)

3rd-person
Full sample R2 change subsample R2 change
Sex - .56 (,19)* .05 - .38 (.22) .04
Education - .22 (.lo) .02 - .29 (.l1)* .02
Religion 1.33 (.26)** .03 .88 (.32)* .02
Attitude toward free expression - .27 (.08)** .03 - .27 (.08)* .03
Exposure to X-rated content - .72 (.14)** .04 - .80 (.16)** .05
Perc’d effect on self .97 (. 16)** .04 1.26 (.24)** .03
Perceptual bias .31 (.lo)* .01 1.33 (.20)** .08
Total R2 .22 .27
SE 2.28 2.13
N 632 41 5
Note: Higher score on the dependent variable (recoded)indicates greater support for regu-
lation of pornography. Other variables coded, or recoded, as follows: sex (1 = female. 2 =
male); religion (0 = no religious affiliation, 1 = any religious affiliation); support for free
expression (1 = low, 4 = high); exposure (1 = none, 2 = some); effect on self and others (1
= large positive effect, 3 = no effect, 5 = large negative effect).Variables that made a triv-
ial contribution (age, children in household, political affiliation) in initial analyses were omit-
ted from the final regression calculation.
* p < .01 * * p c ,001

Linking Perception and Attitude

These data offer compelling evidence o f the tendency for people to estimate
that some types of media content will have more negative effect on others than
on themselves. Confirming findings in smaller populations, the national sample
lends substantial external validity to the perceptual bias hypothesis. Beyond
that, controlling for question order effectively eliminates t h e possibility that the
finding is an artifact of measurement.
The data also indicate that better educated individuals are more prone to the
perceptual bias, a finding with theoretical significance. Attribution theory sug-
gests that people seek reasons for events?o r even understand them in terms of
their perceived causes. In some situations people can attribute their percep-
tions of greater influence on others to self-perceived expertise (Lasorsa, 1989),
in-group membership (Vallone et al., 19851, or apparent biases in the source
(Gunther, 1991). When situation-specific attributions are lacking, however, the
perceptual bias may result from attributions to education or other exogenous
factors.
The direction o f error in the perceptual bias cannot be determined in this
study because there is no way to gauge any actual effect of exposure to por-
nography. But it is certain that people in the aggregate are wrong-they d o sys-
tematically judge others to be more negatively influenced by pornography than
themselves. Either they are underestimating influence o n themselves, overesti-
mating influence on others, or doing some of both. Some past research sug-

35
Journal of Communication, Winter 1995

gests overestimation.10Such an outcome here-overestimation of the negative


influence of pornography on others-would bear importantly on the implica-
tions of attitudinal effects found in these data.
But investigating the attitudinal component of the third-person hypothesis
raises an important theoretical question-namely how the perceptual and attitu-
dinal components are linked. Two theoretical models exist. Each describes a
distinct process corresponding to each of the two components of the third-per-
son hypothesis. One is biased optimism concerning the self, which would
explain the perceptual bias. The second is the "sociotropic" response model,
which would explain influences on attitude or behavior resulting from percep-
tions about others. The question is what connects them, if indeed, they are con-
nected at all?
In projecting a complete picture of the third-person effect, a theorist might
overlay one phenomenon upon the other, like two transparencies, by means of
the following reasoning:
1. There exists a tendency to overestimate the influence of communication
on the condition of others.
2 . People often base their opinions and actions on their perceptions of the
condition of others.
3. Therefore, some portion of those opinions or actions, based on an overes-
timation, are ill-conceived. In arriving at its conclusion, however, such reason-
ing suggests merely the coincidence of two phenomena.
By contrast, this paper proposes a theoretical relationship between the two
phenomena, namely that people are more likely to base their opinion and
action on their perceptions of others when they see others as more different
from themselves. And in the second two columns of Table 2 (analyzing only
people who exhibited the perceptual bias) is evidence suggesting that the two
components of the third-person effect may be causally, rather than just casu-
ally, connected. When contrasted with column 1, the far stronger role of the
self-other difference in column 3 suggests that the perceptual bias in particular
is associated with the sociotropic response.
Care must be taken not to overinterpret this evidence, for these are correla-
tional findings and some other variable or causal path may explain the relation-
ship. However, past research has not demonstrated a correlation between
perceptual bias and attitudes, and that connection can be clearly drawn here.
People do favor restrictions on pornography in line with their perceptions of
effects on others, even when controlling for significant related factors. That con-
sequence is particularly strong for people who demonstrate the perceptual
bias. And as the perceptual bias (seeing others as more negatively affected)
increases, the third-person effect (attitude or action to forestall such effect) also
increases. At least in the case of pornography, then, the sociotropic response
may not be just an independent phenomenon juxtaposed with the perceptual

I"Two of the experimental studies (Gunther, 1991; Gunther & Thorson, 1992) have analyzed the
source of inaccuracy, and those findings favor the view that people err in overestimating effects on
others.

36
Overrating the X-Rating

bias, but rather a consequence of that perception.


In addition, the results of this study have interesting implications for public
policy. Since the perception of greater negative effect on others is significantly
related to support for restrictions on pornography, a component of that sup-
port is related to an erroneous perception. In some cases that relationship may
be inconsequential. But if people are systematically overestimating the negative
social-level effects of pornography, then the third-person effect may be inflat-
ing opinion in favor of censorship.
The outcomes measured in this study are not behaviors. They represent
respondents’ opinions about public policies or actions concerning pornogra-
phy. Given the uncertain connection between attitudes and behavior, they
must be considered a limited indication of the extent to which respondents
would speak, work, vote or otherwise act in favor of restricting pornography.
But, as public opinion increasingly influences the actions of legislators and pol-
icy makers (Kernell, 1986), public attitudes toward the pornography issue
become more important apart from any individual behavior they predict. Public
opinion that stems from the perceptual bias is likely to have social conse-
quences whether or not people act on those opinions themselves.
But public policy aside, these findings are theoretically meaningful because
they suggest media can have social effects in a curiously indirect way. Peoples’
attitudes or behaviors may be influenced, not by media content directly, but by
their perception of the effects of such content on others. And people may be
particularly influenced when, accurately or not, they see others as more nega-
tively affected than they are themselves.

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Journal of Communication, Winter 1995

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