Abstract
Recent research shows parents manifest parental third-person perceptions on behalf of their children; that is, they believe their children are less affected by media sex and violence than other children. This study (N = 171) found parental third-person perceptions for materialism effects of television and parental first-person perceptions for advanced educational effects of public television. Perceptions of materialism effects on one's own and other children predicted parental mediation, whereas perceptions of education effects predicted support for regulations requiring more educational television.
Notes
1No relationship between perceived educational effects and support for marketing regulations was predicted, but perceived basic learning for one's own child was related to support for these regulations, pr(136) = .26, p < .01. This may be because many people who have their kids watch mostly public television (and thus perceive relatively greater educational effects on their kids) do so in part because they dislike the marketing on commercial television and use public television as an ad-free alternative. We thank an anonymous reviewer for suggesting this analysis.
2The second-person partial correlation coefficient includes the previously used controls (parent's sex, age, income, and race; children's TV exposure; and proportion of viewing that was public vs. commercial television) as well as the third-person perception difference score, using the logic of the diamond model (Neuwirth & Frederick, 2002).