Third-person effect

Not to be confused with third man factor, a presence reportedly providing comfort in distress, or the philosophical third man argument.

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.

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]

  1. ^ a b 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. ^ 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.