The third-person effect is the tendency for people to believe that mass media messages, such as advertising, propaganda or persuasive news content, have a greater influence on other people than on themselves. The communications researcher W. Phillips Davison first described and named the effect in a 1983 paper, proposing that this perceived gap between the media's effect on the self versus others can itself shape behavior, for example by leading people to support censorship or restrictions on media content they believe is dangerous mainly because of its presumed effect on others. Subsequent research across many countries and media types has consistently replicated the basic pattern, and the effect is discussed as an instance of a broader self-enhancing bias in which people see themselves as less susceptible to external influence than their peers.
Facts
Core ClaimThe third-person effect is the tendency for people to believe that mass media messages influence other people more than they influence themselves. 1 First Described Year Classification
Type of Phenomenon Connections
Sources
1. Wikipedia: Third-Person Effect
Wikimedia Foundationlead section
The third-person effect hypothesis predicts that people tend to perceive that mass media messages have a greater effect on others than on themselves, based on personal biases.
history section, Davison attribution
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.
lead section, phenomenon-kind classification
The third-person effect hypothesis predicts that people tend to perceive that mass media messages have a greater effect on others than on themselves, based on personal biases.
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