Third-person effect

Last updated

The third-person effect [1] hypothesis predicts that people tend to perceive that mass media messages have a greater effect on others than on themselves, based on personal biases. The third-person effect manifests itself through an individual's overestimation of the effect of a mass communicated message on the generalized other, or an underestimation of the effect of a mass communicated message on themselves.

Contents

These types of perceptions stem from a self-motivated social desirability (not feeling influenced by mass messages promotes self-esteem), a social-distance corollary (choosing to dissociate oneself from the others who may be influenced), and a perceived exposure to a message (others choose to be influenced by persuasive communication). [1] Other names for the effect are "Third-person perception" and "Web Third-person effect". From 2015, the effect is named "Web Third-person effect" when it is verified in social media, media websites, blogs and in websites in general. [2]

History

Sociologist W. Phillips Davison, who first articulated the third-person effect hypothesis in 1983, explains that the phenomenon first piqued his interest in 1949 or 1950, when he learned of Japan's attempt during World War II to dissuade black U.S. soldiers from fighting at Iwo Jima using propaganda in the form of leaflets. As Davison recounts, the leaflets stressed that the Japanese did not have a quarrel with the black soldiers, and therefore they should give up or desert. Although there was no indication that the leaflets had any effect on the soldiers, the incident preceded a substantial reshuffle among the officers and the unit was withdrawn the next day. [1]

Several years later, when interviewing West German journalists to determine the influence of the press on foreign policy, Davison asked the journalists to estimate the influence editorials had on readers. Although no evidence could be found to support their claims, Davison writes that a common response was, “The editorials have little effect on people like you and me, but the ordinary reader is likely to be influenced quite a lot.” [1]

In both anecdotes, the parties that evaluated the impact of the communication estimated a larger media effect on others than on themselves. These and other experiences led Davison to articulate what he called the third-person effect hypothesis, which predicts:

“people will tend to overestimate the influence that mass communications have on the attitudes and behavior of others. More specifically, individuals who are members of an audience that is exposed to a persuasive communication (whether or not this communication is intended to be persuasive) will expect the communication to have a greater effect on others than on themselves. And whether or not these individuals are among the ostensible audience for the message, the impact that they expect this communication to have on others may lead them to take some action. Any effect that the communication achieves 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.” (p. 3). [1]

In a case study conducted by Douglas McLeod et al. (1997), [3] the third-person effect was analyzed via participants’ perceptions of being influenced by violent or misogynistic lyrics from rap music. The sample participants were divided up into three groups: one listened to violent rap music, another heard misogynistic rap music, and the third group was the control group. All lyrics heard were from actual, recorded songs. The study asked subjects to estimate the effects of listening to these types of lyrics on someone's behaviors, knowledge, and attitudes. They were also asked how these lyrics would affect themselves, students at their university, youth in New York or Los Angeles, and the average person. The study found that students considered the rap lyrics to be least influential on themselves and more influential on youths in New York or Los Angeles. People are more likely to assume everyone else is more easily influenced by messages than themselves. Furthermore, a recent study conducted by Nikos Antonopoulos et al. (2015) [2] found characteristics of what users observe when visiting a media website as well as a prediction model. The influence that this information has over their opinion verifies the existence of Web Third-person effect (WTPE). With the use of an online survey (N = 9150) in all media websites (radio station, television station, portal, newspaper and email-social media), it was proved that the variables that have a greater impact either on others or our friends than ourselves are: the number of users being concurrently online on the same media website, the exact number of users having read each article on a media website as well as the number of users having shared a news article on Facebook, Twitter, or other social networks. Moreover, age is a significant factor that explains the findings and is important to the effect. Additionally, factors that affect the influence of the user generated messages on others than on oneself were found. Furthermore, when the more credible the news is perceived to be and when there is not a particular mediated message, the WTPE is absent confirming the existing theory.

Initial Support

To support the third-person effect hypothesis, Davison (1983) conducted four minor and informal surveys. Each survey asked between 25 and 35 participants to estimate the influence of persuasive communication on themselves and others. Participants estimated self-other effects for (1) a campaign theme on gubernatorial vote choice, (2) television advertising on children, (3) the results of early presidential primaries on vote choice, and (4) campaign messages on presidential vote choice. On average they estimated (1) other New York voters were more influenced by campaign themes than they were personally, (2) other children were more influenced by television advertising than they had been personally, (3) others were more influenced by the results of early presidential primaries than they were personally, and (4) others were more influenced by campaign advertisements than they were personally. Although the surveys were informal, they support the hypothesis. [1]

Methodological Artifact Theory

Price and Tewksbury tested whether the third-person effect was a methodological artifact as a result of asking participants self-other questions in close proximity. Using a three-condition experiment in which they asked participants in the first condition self-only questions, participants in the second condition other-only questions, and participants in the third condition self and other questions, Price and Tewksbury's results indicate consistent estimates of self and other estimates across conditions. These results, then, indicate the effect is not the result of a methodological artifact. [4]

Major Factors

According to Perloff (1999, 2009), [5] [6] two major factors facilitate the third-person effect: judgments of message desirability and perceived social distance (social distance corollary). In their meta-analysis of studies of third-person perception Sun, Pan, and Shen (2008) found that message desirability is the most important moderator of third-person perception. [7] Third-person effects are particularly pronounced when the message is perceived as undesirable—that is, when people infer that “this message may not be so good for me” or “it’s not cool to admit you’re influenced by this media program.” In line with these predictions, people have been found to perceive content that is typically thought to be antisocial to have a larger impact on others than on themselves (e.g., television violence, pornography, antisocial rap music). [6] Indeed, many researchers have found evidence that undesirable messages, such as violent and hateful messages, yield a greater third-person effect. [8] [9] [10] [11]

On the other hand, when messages are perceived as desirable, people are not so likely to exhibit a third-person effect. According to Perloff (2009), [6] the first-person effect, or reversed third-person effect, is more common for desirable messages [12] and seems to emerge when agreement with the message reflects positively on the self and to some degree when the message touches on topics that are congruent with the orientation of groups with which individuals identify. According to the self-enhancement view, if the third-person effect is driven by a desire to preserve self-esteem, people should be willing to acknowledge effects for communications that are regarded as socially desirable, healthy, or otherwise good for the self. [11] Undergraduates perceived that others will be more influenced than themselves by cigarette ads but they will be more affected by anti-tobacco and drunk-driving PSAs. [13]

Another factor that influences the magnitude of the third-person effect is perceived social distance between self and comparison others. In the “social distance corollary,” the disparity of self and other is increased as perceived distance between self and comparison others is increased. [13] [14] Assumed in social distance, is that people are more likely to think that someone will have a similar response to themselves if they share characteristics such as where they live, political affiliations and age. [8] Although social distance is not a necessary condition for the third-person effect to occur, increasing the social distance makes the third-person effect larger. In their meta-analysis, Andsager and White (2007) concluded that “Research consistently finds that others who are anchored to self as a point of reference are perceived to be less influenced by persuasive messages than are others who are not defined and, therefore, not anchored to any point of reference at all” (p. 92). [8]

Psychological Underpinnings

Perloff notes that the majority of third-person effect studies attribute the psychological underpinnings of the effect to either attribution theory or biased optimism. [5]

Attribution theory predicts that actors tend to attribute their actions to situational factors while observers tend to attribute the same actions to dispositional factors. For example, attribution theory predicts that a student who turns in a late assignment may explain to the professor that the tardiness is uncharacteristic and due to a situational factor like an unusual computer problem while the professor might believe the tardiness was due instead to a dispositional factor like the student's laziness. In the context of the third-person effect hypothesis, then, attribution theory explains why a person may think that he or she understands the underlying persuasive aspects of the message while others’ dispositional flaws prevent them from perceiving those same aspects. [5]

Biased optimism predicts that people tend to judge themselves as less likely than others to experience negative consequences and, conversely, that people tend to judge themselves as more likely than others to experience positive events. In the context of the third-person effect hypothesis, biased optimism explains why people judge themselves as being less likely than others to be affected by persuasion. [5]

Perceptual Component Meta-Analytic Support

In a critical review and synthesis of the third-person effect hypothesis, Perloff (1999) noted that of the 45 published articles that had tested the phenomenon by 1999, all had found support for the perceptual component of the hypothesis. [5]

One year later, Paul, Salwen, and Dupagne conducted a meta-analysis of 32 empirical analyses that tested the perceptual component of the third-person effect hypothesis. Their results indicate the perceptual component of the third-person effect hypothesis received robust support (r = .50), especially compared to meta-analyses of other media effects theories. [15]

Paul, Salwen, and Dupagne (2000) also found three significant moderators of the perceptual component of the third-person effect hypothesis: (1) sampling – samples obtained from nonrandom samples yielded greater third-person effect differences than samples obtained from random samples; (2) respondent – samples obtained from student samples yielded greater third-person effect differences than samples obtained from non-student samples; and (3) message – different types of content (e.g., general media messages, pornography, television violence, commercial advertisements, political content, nonpolitical news, etc.) have differing effects on the size of the obtained third-person perceptions. [15]

Behavioral Component Support

Multiple studies have found support for the behavioral component of the third-person effect hypothesis. Possibly because Davison noted that censors seldom admit to have been adversely affected by the information they proscribe, [1] scholars who have found support for the behavioral component have generally operationalized behavior as a willingness to censor content to stop the content from having the perceived negative persuasive impact on others. [5]

Specifically, scholars have demonstrated that third-person perception predicts willingness to censor pornography, [16] [17] television violence, [17] sexual and violent television in Singapore, [10] cigarette, beer, liquor, and gambling advertising, [18] rap music [3] and the number of users being concurrently online on the same media website, the exact number of users having read each article on a media website as well as the number of users having shared a news article on Facebook, Twitter, or other social networks. [2]

Scholars, however, have not found that third-person perception predicts willingness to censor news or political media content including censorship of press coverage of the O.J. Simpson trial, [19] support for an independent commission to regulate political communication, [20] or censorship for a Holocaust-denial advertisement. [21]

Hypothesis Extension

Scholars have noted that in some situations, people don't always estimate greater media effects for others than for themselves. Indeed, in certain situations people tend to estimate greater media effects on themselves than on others, and in other situations people tend to estimate similar media effects on self and others. [22] These two phenomena are commonly known as first person and second person effects respectively.

First Person Effects

First person perception

First person effects – the estimation of greater media effects on self than others – tends to happen in situations in which people judge it desirable to be influenced by the media message. Innes and Zeitz first documented this phenomenon in 1988 when they noticed that participants exposed to content with a violent message exhibited traditional third-person effects while those exposed to a public service announcement exhibited the reverse. They described this reverse effect, however, only as “something akin to a third person effect” (p.461). [23]

Several years later, Cohen and Davis, who found that people tended to overestimate the effect of attack advertisements for disliked candidates on themselves than on others, coined the term “reverse third-person effect” (p.687). [12] The same year, Tiedge, Silverblatt, Havice, and Rosenfeld coined the term “first-person effect” to refer to the perceived effects of media on self as being more than on others. [24]

Finally, Gunther & Thorson, in a study that paved the way for extension of the third-person effect hypothesis, demonstrated empirically that the social desirability of the message tended to affect whether participants were likely to exhibit third- or first- person effects. Socially desirable messages, Gunther and Thorson argue, tend to produce first-person effects while messages that are not perceived as desirable to be influenced by tend to produce traditional third-person effects. [25]

First person behavioral effects

Only a handful of studies have, intentionally or unintentionally, examined the behavioral component of the first-person effect. [21] [26] [27] [28] [29] Of these, only one has specifically examined a relationship between first-person perceptions and behavioral consequences. Day examined the relationship between first-person effects from socially desirable issue advertisements and the likelihood of voting for legislation supporting the issue. Day found a significant relationship between first-person perceptions of the advertisement and the reported likelihood of voting for the legislation.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Persuasion</span> Umbrella term of influence and mode of communication

Persuasion or persuasion arts is an umbrella term for influence. Persuasion can influence a person's beliefs, attitudes, intentions, motivations, or behaviours.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Attitude (psychology)</span> Concept in psychology and communication studies

An attitude "is a summary evaluation of an object of thought. An attitude object can be anything a person discriminates or holds in mind." Attitudes include beliefs (cognition), emotional responses (affect) and behavioral tendencies. In the classical definition an attitude is persistent, while in more contemporary conceptualizations, attitudes may vary depending upon situations, context, or moods.

The hostile media effect, originally deemed the hostile media phenomenon and sometimes called hostile media perception, is a perceptual theory of mass communication that refers to the tendency for individuals with a strong preexisting attitude on an issue to perceive media coverage as biased against their side and in favor of their antagonists' point of view. Partisans from opposite sides of an issue will tend to find the same coverage to be biased against them. The phenomenon was first proposed and studied experimentally by Robert Vallone, Lee Ross and Mark Lepper.

Impression management is a conscious or subconscious process in which people attempt to influence the perceptions of other people about a person, object or event by regulating and controlling information in social interaction. It was first conceptualized by Erving Goffman in 1959 in The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life, and then was expanded upon in 1967.

Interpersonal attraction, as a part of social psychology, is the study of the attraction between people which leads to the development of platonic or romantic relationships. It is distinct from perceptions such as physical attractiveness, and involves views of what is and what is not considered beautiful or attractive.

In media studies, mass communication, media psychology, communication theory, and sociology, media influence and themedia effect are topics relating to mass media and media culture's effects on individuals' or audiences' thoughts, attitudes, and behaviors. Through written, televised, or spoken channels, mass media reach large audiences. Mass media's role in shaping modern culture is a central issue for the study of culture.

The evaluation apprehension theory was proposed by Nickolas B. Cottrell in 1972. He argued that we quickly learn that the social rewards and punishments that we receive from other people are based on their evaluations of us. On this basis, our arousal may be modulated. In other words, performance will be enhanced or impaired only in the presence of persons who can approve or disapprove of our actions.

The elaboration likelihood model (ELM) of persuasion is a dual process theory describing the change of attitudes. The ELM was developed by Richard E. Petty and John Cacioppo in 1980. The model aims to explain different ways of processing stimuli, why they are used, and their outcomes on attitude change. The ELM proposes two major routes to persuasion: the central route and the peripheral route.

In psychology, reactance is an unpleasant motivational reaction to offers, persons, rules, or regulations that threaten or eliminate specific behavioral freedoms. Reactance occurs when an individual feels that an agent is attempting to limit one's choice of response and/or range of alternatives.

The social distance corollary is a theory in communication research that concerns the tendency of people to perceive others to be more susceptible to media influence than they actually are.

Attribution is a term used in psychology which deals with how individuals perceive the causes of everyday experience, as being either external or internal. Models to explain this process are called Attribution theory. Psychological research into attribution began with the work of Fritz Heider in the early 20th century, and the theory was further advanced by Harold Kelley and Bernard Weiner. Heider first introduced the concept of perceived 'locus of causality' to define the perception of one's environment. For instance, an experience may be perceived as being caused by factors outside the person's control (external) or it may be perceived as the person's own doing (internal). These initial perceptions are called attributions. Psychologists use these attributions to better understand an individual's motivation and competence. The theory is of particular interest to employers who use it to increase worker motivation, goal orientation, and productivity.

Fear appeal is a term used in psychology, sociology and marketing. It generally describes a strategy for motivating people to take a particular action, endorse a particular policy, or buy a particular product, by arousing fear. A well-known example in television advertising was a commercial employing the musical jingle: "Never pick up a stranger, pick up Prestone anti-freeze." This was accompanied by images of shadowy strangers (hitchhikers) who would presumably do one harm if picked up. The commercial's main appeal was not to the positive features of Prestone anti-freeze, but to the fear of what a "strange" brand might do.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Social information processing (theory)</span>

Social information processing theory, also known as SIP, is a psychological and sociological theory originally developed by Salancik and Pfeffer in 1978. This theory explores how individuals make decisions and form attitudes in a social context, often focusing on the workplace. It suggests that people rely heavily on the social information available to them in their environments, including input from colleagues and peers, to shape their attitudes, behaviors, and perceptions.

The hyperpersonal model is a model of interpersonal communication that suggests computer-mediated communication (CMC) can become hyperpersonal because it "exceeds [face-to-face] interaction", thus affording message senders a host of communicative advantages over traditional face-to-face (FtF) interaction. The hyperpersonal model demonstrates how individuals communicate uniquely, while representing themselves to others, how others interpret them, and how the interactions create a reciprocal spiral of FtF communication. Compared to ordinary FtF situations, a hyperpersonal message sender has a greater ability to strategically develop and edit self-presentation, enabling a selective and optimized presentation of one's self to others.

In social psychology, illusory superiority is a cognitive bias wherein people overestimate their own qualities and abilities compared to others. Illusory superiority is one of many positive illusions, relating to the self, that are evident in the study of intelligence, the effective performance of tasks and tests, and the possession of desirable personal characteristics and personality traits. Overestimation of abilities compared to an objective measure is known as the overconfidence effect.

In social psychology, the Yale attitude change approach is the study of the conditions under which people are most likely to change their attitudes in response to persuasive messages. This approach to persuasive communications was first studied by Carl Hovland and his colleagues at Yale University during World War II. The basic model of this approach can be described as "who said what to whom": the source of the communication, the nature of the communication and the nature of the audience. According to this approach, many factors affect each component of a persuasive communication. The credibility and attractiveness of the communicator (source), the quality and sincerity of the message, and the attention, intelligence and age of the audience can influence an audience's attitude change with a persuasive communication. Independent variables include the source, message, medium and audience, with the dependent variable the effect of the persuasion.

In social psychology, the boomerang effect, also known as "reactance", refers to the unintended consequences of an attempt to persuade resulting in the adoption of an opposing position instead. It is sometimes also referred to as "the theory of psychological reactance", stating that attempts to restrict a person's freedom often produce an "anticonformity boomerang effect". In other words, the boomerang effect is a situation where people tend to pick the opposite of what something or someone is saying or doing because of how it is presented to them. Typically, the more aggressive something is presented, people would more than likely want to do the opposite. For example, if someone were to walk up to a yard with a sign saying "KEEP OFF LAWN" the person would be more likely to want to walk on the lawn because of the way they read the sign. If the sign read "please stay off my grass" people would be more likely to follow the directions.

Channel expansion theory (CET) states that individual experience serves as an important role in determining the level of richness perception and development towards certain media tools. It is a theory of communication media perception that incorporates experiential factors to explain and predict user perceptions of a given media channel. The theory suggests that the more knowledge and experience users gain from using a channel, the richer they perceive the medium to be. The more experience, the more stable the knowledge base the person builds, the more knowledge he gains from the given media channel, thus the richer communication he would have using that channel, and ultimately the richer he would perceive the channel. There are four experiential factors that shapes individual's perceived media richness: experience with the channel, experience with the message topic, experience with the organizational context, and experience with a communication partner.

Self-persuasion is used to explain one aspect of social influence. This theory postulates that the receiver takes an active role in persuading himself or herself to change his or her attitude. Unlike the direct technique of Persuasion, Self-persuasion is indirect and entails placing people in situations where they are motivated to persuade themselves to change. More specifically what characterizes a self-persuasion situation is that no direct attempt is made to convince anyone of anything. Thus, with self-persuasion, people are convinced that the motivation for change has come from within, so the persuasion factors of another person's influence is irrelevant. Therefore, Self-persuasion is almost always a more powerful form of persuasion than the more traditional persuasion techniques. Self-Persuasion, also has an important influence in Social judgment theory, Elaboration Likelihood Model, Cognitive Dissonance and Narrative paradigm.

Truth-default theory (TDT) is a communication theory which predicts and explains the use of veracity and deception detection in humans. It was developed upon the discovery of the veracity effect - whereby the proportion of truths versus lies presented in a judgement study on deception will drive accuracy rates. This theory gets its name from its central idea which is the truth-default state. This idea suggests that people presume others to be honest because they either don't think of deception as a possibility during communicating or because there is insufficient evidence that they are being deceived. Emotions, arousal, strategic self-presentation, and cognitive effort are nonverbal behaviors that one might find in deception detection. Ultimately this theory predicts that speakers and listeners will default to use the truth to achieve their communicative goals. However, if the truth presents a problem, then deception will surface as a viable option for goal attainment.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Davison, W. (1983). "The third-person effect in communication". Public Opinion Quarterly. 47 (1): 1–15. CiteSeerX   10.1.1.457.260 . doi:10.1086/268763.
  2. 1 2 3 Antonopoulos, Nikos; et al. (March 2015). "Web Third-person effect in structural aspects of the information on media websites". Computers in Human Behavior. 44 (3): 48–58. doi: 10.1016/j.chb.2014.11.022 .
  3. 1 2 McLeod, D.M.; Eveland, W.P.; Nathanson, A.I. (1997). "Support for censorship of violent and misogynic rap lyrics: An analysis of the third-person effect". Communication Research. 24 (2): 153–174. doi:10.1177/009365097024002003.
  4. Price, V.; Tewksbury, D. (1996). "Measuring the third-person effect of news: The impact of question order, contrast and knowledge". International Journal of Public Opinion Research. 8 (2): 120–141. doi:10.1093/ijpor/8.2.120.
  5. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Perloff, R.M. (1999). "The third-person effect: A critical review and synthesis". Media Psychology. 1 (4): 353–378. doi:10.1207/s1532785xmep0104_4.
  6. 1 2 3 Perloff, R.M. (2009). "Mass media, social perception, and the third-person effect". In Bryant, Jennings; Oliver, Mary Beth (eds.). Media Effects: Advances in Theory and Research (3rd ed.). Routledge. pp. 252–268. ISBN   9781135591106.
  7. Sun, Y.; Pan, Z.; Shen, L. (2008). "Understanding the third-person perception: Evidence from a meta-analysis". Journal of Communication. 58 (2): 280–300. doi:10.1111/j.1460-2466.2008.00385.x.
  8. 1 2 3 Andsager, J.L.; White, H.A. (2007). Self Versus Others: Media, Messages, and the Third-person Effect. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. ISBN   9780805857160.
  9. Duck, J.M.; Mullin, B.-A. (1995). "The perceived impact of the mass media: Reconsidering the third person effect". European Journal of Social Psychology. 25 (1): 77–93. doi:10.1002/ejsp.2420250107.
  10. 1 2 Gunther, A.C.; Hwa, A.P. (1996). "Public perceptions of television influence and opinions about censorship in Singapore". International Journal of Public Opinion Research. 8 (3): 248–265. doi: 10.1093/ijpor/8.3.248 .
  11. 1 2 Hoornes, V.; Ruiter, S. (1996). "The optimal impact phenomenon: Beyond the third person effect". European Journal of Social Psychology. 26 (4): 599–610. doi:10.1002/(sici)1099-0992(199607)26:4<599::aid-ejsp773>3.0.co;2-7.
  12. 1 2 Cohen, J.; Davis, R.G. (1991). "Third-person effects and the differential impact in negative political advertising". Journalism Quarterly. 68 (4): 680–688. doi:10.1177/107769909106800409.
  13. 1 2 Meirick, P.C. (2005). "Rethinking the target corollary: The effects of social distance, perceived exposure, and perceived predispositions on first-person and third-person perceptions". Communication Research. 32 (6): 822–843. doi:10.1177/0093650205281059. hdl: 11244/24931 .
  14. Meirick, P.C. (2004). "Topic-relevant reference groups and dimensions of distance: Political advertising and first-and third-person effects". Communication Research. 31 (2): 234–255. CiteSeerX   10.1.1.1028.6738 . doi:10.1177/0093650203261514.
  15. 1 2 Paul, B.; Salwen, M.B.; Dupagne, M. (2000). "The third-person effect: A meta-analysis of the perceptual hypothesis". Mass Communication & Society. 3 (1): 57–85. doi:10.1207/s15327825mcs0301_04.
  16. Gunther, A.C. (1995). "Overrating the X-rating: The third-person perception and support for censorship of pornography". Journal of Communication. 45 (1): 27–38. doi:10.1111/j.1460-2466.1995.tb00712.x.
  17. 1 2 Rojas, H.; Shah, D.V.; Faber, R.J. (1996). "For the good of others: Censorship and the third-person effect". International Journal of Public Opinion Research. 8 (2): 163–186. doi: 10.1093/ijpor/8.2.163 .
  18. Shah, D.V.; Faber, R.J.; Youn, S. (1999). "Susceptibility and severity: Perceptual dimensions underlying the third-person effect". Communication Research. 26 (2): 240–267. doi:10.1177/009365099026002006.
  19. Salwen, M.B.; Driscoll, P.D. (1997). "Consequences of third-person perception in support of press restrictions in the O.J. Simpson trial". Journal of Communication. 47 (2): 60–75. doi:10.1111/j.1460-2466.1997.tb02706.x.
  20. Rucinski, D.; Salmon, C.T. (1990). "The "other" as the vulnerable voter: A study of the third-person effect in the 1988 U.S. presidential campaign". International Journal of Public Opinion Research. 2 (4): 345–368. doi:10.1093/ijpor/2.4.345.
  21. 1 2 Price, V; Tewksbury, D; Huang, L-N (1998). "Third-person effects on publication of a holocaust-denial advertisement". Journal of Communication. 48 (2): 3. doi:10.1111/j.1460-2466.1998.tb02745.x.
  22. Andsager, Julie L.; White, H. Allen (2007). Self versus others : media, messages, and the third-person effect. New York: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. pp. 3–5. ISBN   9780203936498.
  23. Innes, J.M.; Zeitz, H. (1988). "The public's view of the impact of the mass media: A test of the "third-person" effect". European Journal of Social Psychology. 18 (5): 457–463. doi:10.1002/ejsp.2420180507.
  24. Tiedge, J.T.; Silverbaltt, A.; Havice, M.J.; Rosenfeld, R. (1991). "Discrepancy between perceived first person and perceived third-person mass media effects". Journalism Quarterly. 68 (1/2): 141–154. doi:10.1177/107769909106800115.
  25. Gunther, A.C.; Thorson, E. (1992). "Perceived persuasive effects of commercials and public service announcements: The third-person effect in new domains". Communication Research. 19 (5): 574–596. doi:10.1177/009365092019005002.
  26. Huh, J.; Delorme, D.; Reid, L.N. (2004). "The third-person effect and its influence on behavioral outcomes in a product advertising context: The case of direct-to-consumer prescription drug advertising". Communication Research. 31 (5): 568–599. doi:10.1177/0093650204267934.
  27. Park, H.S.; Salmon, C.T. (2005). "A test of the third-person effect in public relations: Application of social comparison theory". Journalism Quarterly. 82: 25–43. doi:10.1177/107769900508200103.
  28. Golan, G.J.; Banning, S. (2008). "Exploring a link between the third-person effect and the theory of reasoned action: Beneficial ads and social expectations". American Behavioral Scientist. 52 (2): 208–224. doi:10.1177/0002764208321352.
  29. Day, A. (2008). "Out of the living room and into the voting booth: An analysis of corporate public affairs advertising under the third person effect". American Behavioral Scientist. 52 (2): 243–260. doi:10.1177/0002764208321354.