Psychological perspectives of media effects focus on how individuals actively process, interpret, and respond to media messages rather than being passive recipients. In development communication, these perspectives are especially important because audiences are diverse in terms of culture, education, motivation, and lived experience. Psychological factors such as selectivity, individual differences, persuasion processes, attitude formation, and learning mechanisms significantly influence how media messages are understood, accepted, resisted, or transformed into action. Selectivity theories emphasize that audiences do not consume media messages uniformly. Instead, individuals engage in selective exposure, selective perception, and selective retention. Selective exposure suggests that people prefer media content that aligns with their existing beliefs, values, and needs, while avoiding content that challenges them. In development communication, this explains why messages about social change, health, or gender equality may be accepted by some groups and rejected by others. Selective perception refers to the tendency to interpret the same media message differently based on prior attitudes, cultural frames, and expectations. For example, a government-sponsored development campaign may be seen as empowering by one group and as propaganda by