Assessing the potential conditioning effects of mis and disinformation self-efficacy on the relationship between general social media use and political knowledge.

Prior work on the relationship between general social media use and political knowledge has yielded mixed findings. One recent meta-analysis on the topic concluded that the literature, when assessed as a whole, fails to indicate a direct and statistically identifiable between relationship general social media use and political knowledge. Considering these findings, the present work sought to assess the extent to which general social media use might be conditionally related to political knowledge. To do so, we explored the moderating effect of information-related self-efficacy beliefs. Specifically, building upon general self-efficacy theory and the idea that there exists considerable concern over the extent to which information on social media is factually incorrect, misleading, or biased, we predicted that mis and disinformation self-efficacy (MDSE) beliefs would positively condition the relationship between general social media usage and political knowledge. Contrary to our expectations, the results of three studies indicated that the combination of MDSE and frequent social media use was negatively related to political knowledge.

Interdependent Self-Construal, Self-Efficacy, and Community Involvement as Predictors of Perceived Knowledge Gain Among MMORPG Players.

This study explored the relationship between interdependent self-construal, video game self-efficacy, massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) community involvement, and self-reported learning outcomes. The results suggested that self-efficacy and interdependent self-construal were positive and significant predictors of MMORPG community involvement. For its part, MMORPG community involvement was a positive predictor of self-reported learning in both focused and incidental forms. Supplementary analyses suggested that self-efficacy was a comparatively more robust predictor of MMORPG community involvement when compared to self-construal. Moreover, the present data suggest that community involvement significantly facilitated indirect relationships between self-construal, game-relevant self-efficacy, and both focused and incidental learning.