Third-Person Effect

The third-person effect, originally proposed by W. Phillips Davison in 1983, consists of a perceptual component and a behavioral component. The perceptual component is the view that media messages have [Page 830]a greater effect on others than on oneself. Davison speculated that this belief would have behavioral consequences; for example, it might make people more willing to monitor or regulate media content to protect vulnerable others. Most research on the third-person effect has been done with adults. A handful of studies have examined this phenomenon among children and adolescents, and two studies have explored parents' beliefs about the effects of television on their own and other children.

Support for the third-person perception has been found for many types of media content, including product and political advertising, rap music, pornography, and media violence. Results suggest that the third-person perception is strengthened when the media message is negative or when persuasion by the message is perceived as less socially desirable, but that it is reduced or reversed for positive media content (e.g., public service announcements), as long as audience members consider it desirable to be influenced by the message. In a study of parents' beliefs about television violence effects, third-person perceptions (that their own child would be less affected than others' children) were larger for socially undesirable aggression-related effects than for effects on perceptions of social reality. In another study, children judged themselves as less affected than other children by cigarette advertisements (a third-person perception) but saw themselves as more influenced by anti-smoking messages (a first-person perception).

One explanation for third-person perceptions, derived from attribution theory, is that people's judgments about their own and others' behavior is based on different sources of information (the fundamental attribution error), leading to biased perceptions. In an effort to explain the different patterns for negative and positive media content, scholars have suggested that self-enhancement may explain motivation. Third-person perceptions may be grounded in people's motivation to feel in control and maintain a positive selfimage. Individuals can enhance their self-esteem by judging themselves as smarter, more knowledgeable, and more resistant to persuasion than others.

This tendency to see oneself as relatively unaffected by the media extends to one's close associates. Third-person perceptions are greater when the others being compared are described as more socially distant (students at the same school versus people in the same state). For example, children's third-person perceptions for cigarette ads were larger when the comparison others were children their age rather than their best friends. One explanation is that, when considering distant and unfamiliar others, people tend to generate a stereotyped image of someone likely to be more influenced by the media. Another explanation suggests that this pattern may reflect assumptions about media exposure. People may assume that more distant others are more likely to be exposed to harmful media content—for example, people in general watch more violent TV than the people in one's own neighborhood.

Group processes, such as those described by social identity theory, have also been proposed as an underlying mechanism. More distant others are likely to be seen as less similar and as more likely to belong to an out-group, that is, a social group different from one's own. People judged to be members of an out-group are evaluated less favorably—and as more influenced by the media—than members of one's in-group.

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