Self Versus Others: Media, Messages, and the Third-Person Effect [1 ed.] 0805857168, 9780805857160

Table of contents :
Dedication
Contents
Preface
1 The Third-Person Effect
2 Receiver Variables
3 Message Variables
4 Source and Channel Variables
5 The First-Person Effect as Persuasion
6 Defining the Others
7 Systematic Versus Heuristic Processing
8 Understanding the Third-Person Effect as a Special Context for Persuasion
References
Author Index
Subject Index

Citation preview

Self Versus Others Media, Messages, and the Third-Person Effect

LEA’s COMMUNICATION SERIES Jennings Bryant/Dolf Zillmann, General Editors Selected titles include the following: Berger • Planning Strategic Interaction: Attaining Goals Through Communicative Action Bryant/Zillmann • Media Effects: Advances in Theory and Research, Second Edition Ellis • Crafting Society: Ethnicity, Class, and Communication Theory Fortunato • Making Media Content: The Influence of Constituency Groups on Mass Media Greene • Message Production: Advances in Communication Theory Reichert/Lambaise • Sex in Consumer Culture: The Erotic Content of Media and Marketing Roskos-Ewoldsen/Monahan • Communication and Social Cognition: Theories and Methods Singhal/Rogers • Entertainment Education: A Communication Strategy for Social Change Zillmann/Vorderer • Media Entertainment: The Psychology of Its Appeal For a complete list of other titles in LEA’s Communication Series, please contact Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Publishers at www.erlbaum.com

Self Versus Others Media, Messages, and the Third-Person Effect

Julie L. Andsager The University of Iowa

H. Allen White Murray State University

2007

LAWRENCE ERLBAUM ASSOCIATES, PUBLISHERS Mahwah, New Jersey London

This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2009. To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk . Copyright © 2007 by Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, by photostat, microform, retrieval system, or any other means, without prior written permission of the publisher. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc., Publishers 10 Industrial Avenue Mahwah, New Jersey 07430 www.erlbaum.com Cover design by Tomai Maridou Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Andsager, Julie L. Self versus others : media, messages, and the third-person effect / Julie L. Andsager & H. Allen White. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-8058-5716-0 — 0-8058-5716-8 (cloth) ISBN 978-1-4106-1612-8 (e book) 1. Mass media—Social aspects. 2. Mass media—Psychological aspects. 3. Persuasion (Psychology). I. White, H. Allen. II. Title. HM1206.A538 2007 303.3'42—dc22 2006029772 CIP ISBN 0-203-93649-3 Master e-book ISBN

For M. Mark Miller— teacher, advisor, friend

Contents

Preface

ix

1

The Third-Person Effect

1

2

Receiver Variables

12

3

Message Variables

31

4

Source and Channel Variables

48

5

The First-Person Effect as Persuasion

60

6

Defining the Others

78

7

Systematic Versus Heuristic Processing

102

8

Understanding the Third-Person Effect as a Special Context for Persuasion

118

References

135

Author Index

147

Subject Index

151 vii

Preface

For more than two decades, the third-person effect has intrigued scholars in public opinion and mediated communication research. The notion that we perceive ourselves virtually untouched by negative or harmful media messages whereas others surely must be affected was first articulated by the sociologist W. Phillips Davison in 1983. Simple on its face, the third-person effect summarizes the product of far more complex social psychological processes. Thus, scholars have produced countless studies (re)documenting the effect’s existence and attempting to determine why and under what conditions it exists. Several explanations have been proffered, but none as yet fully explains the third-person effect. One of our purposes in writing this book was to synthesize extant research on the third-person effect in a more comprehensive manner than is allowed in the space allotted in journal articles or book chapters. The sheer volume of published studies renders impossible a thorough review of the third-person effect literature in two or three pages. We have attempted to include all published works on the phenomenon, but given the breadth of journals in which third-person effects studies have appeared, it is quite probable that we have inadvertently missed some. Omission should not reflect poorly on the authors of those studies. Our primary purpose, however, was to explore the underlying concepts and connections that the third-person effect shares with established theories of persuasion and mediated communication. In doing so, we suggest a direct link between the third-person effect and coorientation (McLeod & Chaffee, 1973). We further contend that cognitive processing styles, which serve as the mechanism for prominent persuasion models (e.g., Chaiken, Liberman, & Eagly, 1989; Petty & Cacioppo, 1986), form the basis of the ix

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mechanism driving the third-person effect as well, because they tap into the causes of perceptual discrepancies. Basically, we suggest that the first-person effect (the notion that we perceive ourselves more influenced than others by positive messages) is a type of persuasion. In other words, this concept that has seemed to stymie researchers is nothing new or unusual. We intend for this book to stimulate new ways of thinking about the third-person effect. It is our hope that our scholarly colleagues find the arguments it contains provocative and that they use the ideas as the foundation of further study into the processes of perceptions and persuasion. The book traces the evolution of theory building surrounding the third-person effect, noting methodological and conceptual issues where necessary. As such, we intend for Self Versus Others to be a valuable resource for researchers and future researchers, both as a snapshot of a specific phenomenon and as a guidebook for conceptualizing the building of theory. It should be useful in the theory classroom and as a reference for scholars. By no means, though, do we intend this book as the final word on the third-person effect. Indeed, as we go through the production process, new studies on the effect are appearing in journals and conference programs. This book is the first to focus on the third-person effect, however, and the most comprehensive discussion of it to date. Considering that third-person effect research continues to intrigue scholars of mediated communication, public opinion, and social psychology—to name a few disciplines—we fully expect another volume to supplant this one. For now, however, Self Versus Others should provide fodder for thought, discussion, and further research. STRUCTURE OF THIS BOOK

The book consists of two parts. In the first half, we synthesize two decades and more of research on the third-person effect. To better position the effect as a contextual variable, we have divided the review into chapters based on traditional models of communication (Lasswell, 1948) and persuasion (McGuire, 1968). Individuals participating in third-person effect studies to form the self within the model are construed as receivers of messages. Chapter 2, therefore, examines the individual-level traits that have been studied as characteristics of research participants themselves—exposure, knowledge, ego involvement, and the like. Chapter 3 turns to message characteristics that affect the magnitude of third- or first-person perceptions. Does violent television programming produce greater perceptual discrepancies than, say, political attack advertising? Because the message content is generally the focus of the behavioral component, the behavioral component is addressed in the third chapter. Given the purpose of the book, however, we devote far more space to the perceptual component throughout.

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In chapter 4, we discuss the variables relevant to the source of the message in question, primarily credibility and expertise. Limited research has analyzed the role of channels in the third-person effect, and because channels are often not clearly defined in these studies (e.g., television violence sets the focus on the channel, but without a specific program or incident, it is also a source), they are included in chapter 4. The second half of the book shifts to discussion of how third-person perceptions are, in essence, an instance of persuasion. We connect the thirdperson perception to extant persuasion theories to illustrate the inherent similarities among the source, receiver, and message variables among them, in addition to mechanisms underlying them. Thus, chapter 5 analyzes the relationship between the first-person effect and basic persuasion in terms of self-enhancement motivations, concluding that the first-person perception is merely the result of successful persuasion. Chapter 6 reviews social distance in terms of the various definitions of “others” that scholars have employed in their third-person effect studies. Chapter 7 focuses on systematic and heuristic processing, the mechanisms for several persuasion models (Chaiken, Liberman, & Eagly, 1989; Petty & Cacioppo, 1986). We argue that third-person effects (and persuasion) are the results of systematic processing on the part of the self, whereas the assumption is made that others rely only on heuristic processing. Finally, in chapter 8 we present a model extending the third-person effect that, we believe, will serve to increase the parsimony, heuristic nature, and predictive nature of persuasion. Because the relationship of self to others is so crucial in the direction and magnitude of perceptual discrepancies, discussion of our model depends heavily on coorientation (McLeod & Chaffee, 1973). The coorientation model is commonly used to understand how audiences make decisions about organizations and their communication, which suggests clear implications for perceptual discrepancies. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

It is a joy to publicly thank a few of the individuals who have made our intellectual lives fulfilling and fun over the years and those who have contributed specifically to the completion of this book. Richard M. Perloff inadvertently planted the seed for the book during the 2003 meeting of the Midwest Association for Public Opinion Research, and his enthusiastic support of our work for many years has been a source of pride and gratitude. Furthermore, Rick has published three incisive syntheses of research on the third-person effect that have inspired, informed, and confounded us and other scholars. Our greatest debt is to M. Mark Miller, now retired, of the University of Tennessee-Knoxville. Mark taught us theory and quantitative methods, and advised our dissertations. Most importantly, he showed us the joy of re-

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search for its own sake. We hope that this book—which could not have existed without his instruction and friendship—in some small way acknowledges all he means to us. The people of Lawrence Erlbaum Associates have been encouraging and patient during production of this volume. Linda Bathgate’s support has been invaluable. We thank Karin Wittig Bates and Sara Scudder for their work on production. Our professional colleagues—Rick Perloff, David Tewsbury, and David Roskos-Ewoldsen—whose comments on our proposal made this a stronger publication—deserve our thanks as well, as do those researchers whose work is cited throughout this book. Because of their contributions, any errors, misstatements, or misinterpretations are ours alone. —Julie L. Andsager —H. Allen White

1 The Third-Person Effect

In early 2004, religious leaders apprehensively debated on network news programs whether the then-unreleased film The Passion of the Christ—Mel Gibson’s depiction of the last hours of Jesus Christ and his crucifixion— would generate anti-Semitism among its audiences. A small group of protesters picketed outside a Manhattan, New York, movie theater when the film opened in late February (Patterson, 2004). Subsequent polls found mixed results as to whether their fears were well founded, with participants who had seen the film, and those who planned to, more likely to say that Jews were responsible for the death of Christ than those who had not seen it, although of course it is quite probable that these moviegoers already held that belief (The Pew Research Center for the People and the Press, 2004). As the film Fahrenheit 9/11 was released in the early summer of 2004, Republican leaders, apparently assuming that voters in the upcoming presidential election might be negatively influenced by the film, first sought to discourage audiences from seeing it (Rich, 2004). When the film set a record in ticket sales for a documentary in its first weekend (“Moore: Thanks, Opponents,” 2004), however, the same leaders reappeared on network news programs to castigate the credibility of its maker. Two years later, the American Family Association threatened the retail chain Wal-Mart when the corporation began selling DVDs of Brokeback Mountain, a film the AFA accused of promoting a gay agenda. The organization was concerned that children might see the posters for Brokeback Mountain in Wal-Mart stores and become attracted to the film (Bosman, 2006), thus possibly falling into the temptation of homosexuality. Beyond these controversial episodes, parents of small children have expressed concern that their children are heavily influenced by food advertis1

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ing on television, with about half reporting that they fear the influence is “a lot” (Rideout, 2004)—this despite the fact that most children must rely on their parents to actually purchase any food they consume. The U.S. presidential election of 2004—the “Armageddon election,” according to some (Maraniss, 2004)—drew a record number of voters, but perhaps the most salient issue in the news was the “red versus blue” division, a nod to the color coding television networks used in their election night coverage to depict states that voted Republican (red) or Democratic (blue). For the rest of November, news media, blogs, and pundits toyed with the meaning of the red–blue divide. A survey conducted about one month after Election Day asked Americans whether they thought the nation was more politically divided than in the past; 66% said the division had increased, but they estimated that 40% of people they knew had not noticed a change (The Pew Research Center for People and the Press, 2005). What do these widely disparate examples have in common? For the movie controversies, the outcry that occurred with their release was based on a small group’s expectation of the negative effect that the content would have on others. In some cases, the leaders had seen the films but they didn’t admit to great impact on themselves—however, they seemed not to believe their followers could be trusted to process the messages without negative consequences. Because the religious and political leaders believed that audiences would be influenced, they seemed willing to limit or even restrict people’s ability to view the film that concerned them. Parents assumed their children’s demands for junk food must originate through persuasive messages they saw on television. On the other hand, survey respondents who called the nation more divided after having heard for a month that it was (and likely experiencing it in their own lives) thought that it was smart to recognize the rift in the political landscape, but they assumed others were not aware or involved enough to have noticed. In these cases, groups and individuals exhibited the third-person effect, articulated by W. Phillips Davison in 1983. The third-person effect posits that we do not perceive ourselves to be adversely impacted—which might mean persuaded, made more aggressive, or even simply influenced—by messages, but we think “others” will be. As Davison noted, in a quotation that frequently appears in third-person effect studies, “In the view of those trying to evaluate the effects of a communication, its greatest impact will not be on ‘me’ or ‘you,’ but on ‘them’—the third persons” (p. 3). The more socially distant those others are, the greater the impact we envision. In other words, people who seem similar to us in age, political orientation, area of residence, or other relevant traits will be (so we assume) more likely to respond the way we do than those vague other people who are older, or more liberal or conservative, or who live far away. Regardless, however, the emphasis is on the perceptual difference between us and them, which is

THE THIRD-PERSON EFFECT

3

referred to as the perceptual component of the third-person effect. The behavioral component of the effect further suggests that we will take some action to reduce the likelihood that others will be exposed to the message (although some scholars, as we discuss in chapter 3, have examined other types of behavior). These discrepancies are particularly pronounced when the message or media content is perceived to be negative, dangerous, or socially undesirable in general. Figure 1.1 depicts a third-person perception model, in which the solid line to self indicates an individual’s self-report on some measure of influence following exposure to the undesirable message. The broken lines from undesirable message to others represent the individual’s estimation of the influence that same content will have on those others. Distant others are positioned further from the message to indicate a more tenuous estimation, or, in other words, to convey the greater guesswork required by the individual estimating the influence. Note that the self is exactly in the center of the continuum from positive influence (e.g., donating to a charitable organization) to a negative influence (becoming aggressive); this position reflects the lack of message effect individuals perceive (or report) on themselves. Meanwhile, the larger the social distance an individual perceives between self and other, the greater perceived negative influence on other. Davison (1983) focused on socially undesirable messages in his seminal article, such as propaganda during war, television creating materialistic desires in children, and political advertising against a favored candidate. He did not consider the converse possibility—that of a positive message. Would perceptual discrepancies evince the same patterns for messages that advocated a desirable behavior or attitude? Gunther and Thorson (1992) hypothesized that, in fact, prosocial content, such as that in public service an-

Figure 1.1. Third-person effects on self and others.

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nouncements, would stimulate individuals to perceive themselves more affected than others. In finding support for this hypothesis, they coined the term “reverse third-person effect” (p. 591). Following Perloff’s (1993b) synthesis of third-person effect literature, “first-person effect” and “reverse third-person effect” were used interchangeably.1 (Perloff explained the grammatical etiology of third person, as in third-person voice, comparing this to the “first person.”) Figure 1.2 illustrates a model of the first-person or reverse third-person effect, which is the notion that individuals perceive themselves to be more affected by a (positive) message than they expect others will be. Again, the solid line from “desirable” message to self indicates self-report and the broken lines from message to others the mere estimation of influence. The social distance between self and other, and self and distant other, remain much the same as in Fig. 1.1. In the case of the first-person effect, however, the self is more willing to acknowledge the message’s influence, usually in a positive manner. Others may be perceived as slightly positively influenced, negatively influenced to some degree less than the self was positively influenced, or not influenced at all. Other scholars have taken the grammar metaphor one step further and suggested a second-person effect (Neuwirth & Frederick, 2002; Neuwirth, Frederick, & Mayo, 2002). The second-person effect is defined as occurring in situations of “joint media influence on self and others” (Neuwirth et al., p. 117). This concept seems to assume that under ordinary third- or first-per-

Figure 1.2. First-person effects on self and others. 1

To the best of our knowledge, the first published use of the term “first-person effect” appeared in 1991 (Tiedge, Silverblatt, Havice, & Rosenfeld). That study, however, defined first-person effects simply as effects on self, in the literal grammatical sense.

THE THIRD-PERSON EFFECT

5

son effects, either self or other has experienced no influence, an assumption that’s difficult to test considering that all perceptual data accrue from human subjects, who are sometimes given to obfuscation. A RESEARCH PHENOMENON

“The Third-Person Effect in Communication” (Davison, 1983) was published in the journal Public Opinion Quarterly, the flagship journal of the American Association for Public Opinion Research. As such, the journal’s audience comprises professional pollsters, mediated communication researchers, political scientists, and sociologists, among others. (Davison himself was a professor of journalism and sociology.) It would be mediated communication and sociology scholars who embraced the idea. Written in an approachable, common-sense style, Davison’s (1983) article contained no rigorous statistical or methodological support. He presented only the results of four informal experiments that he had conducted on small groups (25 to 33 people each) of his graduate students and other adults. The anecdotal evidence Davison provided, however, was intriguing—his personal experience and observations, humbly presented, served as his basis for “a proposition that, for want of a better label, may be called the ‘third-person effect’” (p. 3). But there was more to it than that. Davison also noted that previous sociological research produced results hinting at such a phenomenon, but scholars had not “paused to comment on it” (p. 8). By the time he linked the third-person effect with pluralistic ignorance (Katz & Allport, 1931; Merton, 1968) and suggested it played a role in the spiral of silence (Noelle-Neumann, 1974), Davison made a convincing case. Even the practical implications—“[l]overs, certainly, have frequently tried to influence the behavior of the loved one by seeming to direct their attentions to someone else” (p. 4)—intuited well. Despite the promise the idea held, it took several years for researchers to publicly present empirical studies testing it. A survey conducted in 1984 compared whether individuals perceived themselves and others equally influenced by public opinion polls, finding no support for the third-person effect (Glynn & Ostman, 1988). This survey seems to be one of the earliest formal third-person effect studies.2 The first published studies appeared in 1988 in the form of experimental (Cohen, Mutz, Price, & Gunther, 1988; Innes & Zeitz, 1988) and survey research (Glynn & Ostman, 1988). Undoubtedly, research studies were being presented at scholarly conferences as well. Scholars had discovered the third-person effect. 2

For his 1993 synthesis, Perloff contacted researchers conducting third-person effect studies to find unpublished studies to include, along with published journal articles.

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By the early 1990s, the existence of the third-person effect was well established (Perloff, 1993b). At that time, Perloff reviewed the literature on the relatively new topic, discussing all of the presented, published, or in-press studies he could find, a total of 14. A meta-analysis a few years later included every published article, conference paper, thesis, dissertation, and unpublished paper that had been conducted up to 1998, by then 62 studies (Paul, Salwen, & Dupagne, 2000). In the mid to late 1990s, the third-person effect became a hot topic of study. Scholarly conferences devoted to quantitative mediated communication research, for instance, were full of third-person effect research. Third-person effects were tested in conjunction with established theoretical perspectives, including agenda setting (Matera & Salwen, 1995) and the spiral of silence (Willnat, 1996). Starting in 1996, a dramatic increase occurred in the number of refereed journal articles appearing each year. Figure 1.3 depicts the frequency of published third-person effect articles through 2005. As of the beginning of 2006, we were able to find 94 articles and chapters in U.S. and international mediated communication and sociology journals. In 1996, Davison published a retrospective essay, “The Third-Person Effect Revisited,” in the International Journal of Public Opinion Research. In it, he claimed he had no idea that the third-person effect was to become the subject of such a flurry of research. The third-person effect, he wrote of his thoughts in the early 1980s, was “an interesting phenomenon … but it was of minor theoretical significance” (p. 114). After noting a few of the clever studies derived from his hypothesis (and crediting Perloff [1993b] with refining the concept to the third-person perception in order to differentiate the perceptual from the behavioral components), Davison (1996) concluded

Figure 1.3. Third-person effect articles published in scholarly journals, 1983–2005.

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7

that “the third-person effect proved to be a more complex phenomenon than [he] originally suspected …. [It] is just as likely to contribute to more general theories about communication as other approaches” (pp. 114–115). Thus, for Davison, it was enough to have served as the impetus of an important body of public opinion knowledge; again, humbly, he did not feel a need to claim more. Evaluating the Third-Person Effect

Why did such a spate of research spring from Davison’s (1983) unprepossessing article? As we have already said, the notion is intuitive; it makes sense. Although one small, naturalistic experiment questioned whether the third-person effect actually matters in society (Banning, 2001b), research suggests a number of situations throughout U.S. history that provide evidence it has influenced policy. The Sedition Act of 1798 and the prelude to the Spanish-American War in the late 19th century, among other crises, seem to have foundations in anxiety that others will be influenced by words (Baughman, 1989). Certainly the tightening press and speech restrictions surrounding several wars support the notion of the behavioral component. According to Baughman, political actors “have left evidence that suggests, if not how the mass media affected them, how they believed the mass media touched others” (p. 18). Thus, not only does the third-person effect seem logical, it also has import for the world in which we live. In terms of social scientific research, however, the third-person effect fits nicely with several of the criteria used to evaluate theory. Generally, “good” theory is abstract, empirical (testable), parsimonious, generalizable, transmissible, heuristic, and falsifiable.3 The figures in this chapter demonstrate the parsimony and empirical nature of the model as well as its heuristic value. As the following chapters show, the effect is generalizable (also known as possessing scope; Shoemaker, Tankard, & Lasorsa, 2004) to a wide variety of messages, from persuasion to news to entertainment; across channels and over time. It is abstract in that it transcends the realm of media and public opinion, as historical and other real-world examples illustrate (Baughman, 1989; Davison, 1983), as well as methodological issues, such as question order or wording (Dupagne, Salwen, & Paul, 1999; Perloff, 1999; Price & Tewksbury, 1996). The third-person effect adheres to Popper’s (1965) concept of falsifiability, which requires that statements (or theories) “must be capable of conflicting with possible, or conceivable, observations” (p. 51). The property of falsification needs enough specificity—or demarcation, in Popper’s terminology—that a true test of the hypothesis can result in its refutation. To be sure, tests of some content with some populations have not resulted in third-person perceptions (e.g., Glynn & Ostman, 1988). 3

We are indebted to M. Mark Miller for teaching us these concepts.

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Transmissibility, or the quality of transmitting from one culture or nation to another, is one characteristic of theory that’s nearly always fulfilled by the third-person effect. Cross-cultural studies have produced robust third-person perceptions, suggesting the phenomenon is universal. Although the majority of research has been conducted in the United States, the third-person effect has been found among Jewish settlers in Israel and Gaza (Tsfati & Cohen, 2005); university students in New Zealand (Douglas & Sutton, 2004) and Australia (Gibbon & Durkin, 1995); German adults (Brosius & Engel, 1996); and university students in The Netherlands (Hoorens & Ruiter, 1996). The notion that self-enhancement is an underlying mechanism for perceptual discrepancies led some scholars to doubt whether the effects would occur in collectivist cultures, considering that self-enhancement ought to be greater in individualist cultures. Nonetheless, the third-person effect evinces itself even in collectivist cultures such as South Korea (Cho & Han, 2004; Lee & Tamborini, 2005); among young women in Hong Kong for messages about eating disorders (Wan, Faber, & Fung, 2003); and it appears for pornography in Singapore (Wu & Koo, 2001) and Taiwan (Lo & Paddon, 2001). Indeed, one survey found that participants in eight countries perceived that U.S. media would have greater effects on others both in their own nation and those in other countries (Willnat, He, Takeshita, & LópezEscobar, 2002). The study included four Asian nations (China, Hong Kong, Indonesia, and Japan) and four European countries (Germany, Great Britain, Spain, and the Netherlands). Do these attributes make the third-person effect a theory? Unfortunately, no, at least not in our estimation. Shoemaker et al. (2004) listed a crucial criterion for theory that the third-person effect has not met: explanatory power, which they defined as the “primary goal of theory is to provide explanations. The better the explanation, the better the theory” (p. 172). In other words, why is this statement of relationships among variables consistently supported? We now know the third-person effect is a “real” phenomenon, not a mere artifact, thanks to experiments that have rigorously attempted falsification (David, Liu, & Myser, 2004; Paek, Pan, Sun, Abisaid, & Houden, 2005), but we still cannot satisfactorily explain why it occurs among so many populations for so many messages, apparently regardless of who is defined as other. In the parlance we use in chapter 2, what is the mechanism driving the third-person effect? Until scholars can conclusively identify that mechanism, we must consider the third-person effect a sophisticated model—an intriguing, aesthetically pleasing model—but a model nonetheless. Shoemaker et al. describe a model as a portrayal that highlights portions of salient reality, but a model cannot explain. Although the third-person effect does frequently predict (a characteristic Shoemaker et al. deny models), we argue that prediction cannot be fully accurate without explanation.

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EXPLANATIONS FOR THIRD-PERSON PERCEPTIONS

Nothing is more exciting to scholars, it seems, than a (mostly) regularly occurring phenomenon that fails to adhere to one clear-cut explanation. (Thank goodness for such phenomena, for the sake of social science.) For third-person perceptions, as we refer to them in this section for the sake of accuracy (the behavioral component has not been linked to any satisfactory mechanism, so we are not talking about the effect as Davison [1983] articulated it), a number of social psychological and psychological theories have been suggested. After all these years, researchers have yet to reach a consensus on the underlying mechanism that drives these perceptual discrepancies. A recurring theme in the third-person perception literature is the notion that individuals are prone to compare their responses to a message to others’ responses. For socially undesirable messages, that comparison almost inevitably results in the individual’s evaluation of self as more favorable than other. This is known variously in the psychology literature as the “betterthan-average effect” (Alicke, Klotz, Breitenbecher, Yurak, & Vredenburg, 1995) or, in some cases, downward comparison (Wills, 1981), which posits that individuals seek to find some trait on which they can evaluate themselves as superior to others. A third explanation has been optimistic bias, the notion that we are less vulnerable to negative events—or messages—than others are (Weinstein, 1980). Studies indicate, however, that the third-person effect is positively associated with (Chapin, 2002; Gunther & Mundy, 1993), negatively associated with (Chapin, 1999, 2000), or not necessarily linked to, optimistic bias (Salwen & Dupagne, 2003). Perhaps the most persuasive explanatory concept thus far is the idea of the self-enhancement motivation (Brown, 1986). Self-enhancement does not rely on notions of optimistic bias, which imply, to some extent, naiveté. Rather, this combines the best of downward comparison theory and the better-than-average hypothesis to suggest that in some cases, when it is smart or beneficial to not be influenced by a particular message, individuals will report that they are in fact uninfluenced. Conversely, they perceive a fairly dramatic effect on others, especially as those others have a greater social distance from themselves. Some researchers have alternatively interpreted a close variant on this concept, an ego-defensive mechanism (Eveland & McLeod, 1999), as a better explanation. These mechanisms and others are discussed more fully in chapter 2. Accuracy of Estimations

Whether the third-person perceptions are in any way accurate has been a minor subject of interest in the literature (Conners, 2005; Perloff, 1999). One perspective has argued that we tend to overestimate how easily influ-

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enced or persuaded others will be by a message (Gunther, 1991; Gunther & Thorson, 1992), a phenomenon that results in larger third-person perceptions than may be correct. On the other hand, some studies have found that individuals are “not accurate judges of their own influenceability” (Gibbon & Durkin, 1995, p. 601). We are actually more likely to underestimate how much effect messages have on ourselves (Douglas & Sutton, 2004). Although the accuracy of our estimations about self and others is important to understand because it sheds light on a variety of psychological processes, we do not devote much space to the topic in this book. We are more concerned with the motivations underlying the self–other comparison than with their accuracy. Third-person effects occur within an individual; we cannot readily determine the extent to which we are correct in our judgments about others, but our attitudes and behaviors are often predicated on the mere assumption of difference between our selves and others. Furthermore, these phenomena are readily apparent throughout the psychology literature, as psychologist Daniel Gilbert (2006) summarized in a column in The New York Times: Much of what happens in the brain is not evident to the brain itself, and thus people are better at playing these sorts of tricks [to judge others differently] on themselves than at catching themselves in the act. People realize that humans deceive themselves, of course, but they don’t seem to realize that they too are human. (p. 12)

For example, in terms of the third-person effect, this perceptual disjuncture manifests in a “desire for censorship [that] may be built upon unconfirmed fears of media influence rather than the actual impact of media” (Youn, Faber, & Shah, 2000, p. 647). If an individual acts to promote censorship, however, the action may result in media restriction—whether or not the fear is reasonable. Thus, the question of accuracy is not as meaningful as the existence of the perception itself and what outcomes accrue from that perception. PURPOSE OF THIS BOOK

Although the third-person effect sparked a huge flurry among communication scholars from the mid-1990s on, attempts to explicitly link the phenomenon to persuasion has been sporadic, at best. Our purpose here is to present the theoretical perspective that the first-person perception is merely persuasion in its most basic sense. The third-person effect is a nontraditional variable or context for persuasive messages. The persuasive role of media and their messages has long been studied through a variety of theoretical perspectives, generally focusing on the traditional variables related to the

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message itself; some involving the source and some the audience. These variables behave remarkably similarly in third-person effect studies. What is most important about persuasion is its impact on public opinion, subsequent behavior, and often ultimately policy. By positioning the third-person effect as a nontraditional variable that communicators are able to manipulate, we reduce the distraction and redundancy inherent in campaign message design. Furthermore, the realization that the first-person effect is merely persuasion may offer new directions in scholars’ understanding of persuasion, increasing the likelihood that communicators will be able to create successful persuasive messages for health, political, and other social campaigns. Of course, not all messages are intended to be persuasive. The third-person perception occurs for entertainment and news media as often as it does for advertising and other forms of persuasion. Discussion of the variables involved and the underlying explanatory mechanism for why such phenomena exist may help us to better understand why individuals evaluate self and others the way they do.

2 Receiver Variables

The most basic element of the third-person effect is the self. As the source of all third-person data, the individual comprising self is vital to research and our understanding of the processes driving these perceptions, but the self is also perhaps the most elusive component in the model. For instance, although the mechanism driving third-person perceptions lies within the individual, he or she cannot (or will not) accurately tell us why messages may affect others more than himself or herself. The self is the one variable that researchers cannot manipulate, and as such, it has tended to receive less attention than the message or the definition of “others” that make for intriguing experiments. Measures of cognitive and motivational processes driving the third-person effect rely on the individual’s self-report, and as in other social science research, they may be fraught with error. Often, indexes designed to tap into a variety of individual traits–message processing, media schema, perceptions of relevance—have unfortunately produced disappointing levels of reliability in many studies, indicating that the items included in the index are not necessarily reflecting the same underlying construct. The indexes are frequently significant, nonetheless. On the other hand, researchers have successfully examined a breadth of variables that provide insight into how and why the third-person effect so frequently occurs. Like the other components of the third-person effect model, the self is clearly tied to the message or content stimulus, and it is somewhat disingenuous to separate the two. Nonetheless, examining how individual traits relate to estimations of effects on self and on others suggests possible explanations for the mechanism underlying the third-person effect. In this chapter, we review individual traits that appear to influence the magnitude of the 12

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13

third-person effect, and then turn to how those traits seem to affect estimations of effects on self and effects on others. SOCIODEMOGRAPHIC FINDINGS

Of course, in early studies of the effect, demographic variables received a good deal of attention—they are easy to measure, must be recorded and used as control variables, and they often produce significant findings themselves. The problem in third-person effect studies, however, is that demographics are not consistent predictors; they sometimes seem to behave in counterintuitive ways. Nonetheless, these variables often “reflect or indirectly point to underlying conceptual factors that actually are impacting on perceptions of media effects on others and the self” (Perloff, 1993b, p. 175). Because age and gender have long been recognized as playing important roles in predicting support for media or individual rights (Andsager, Wyatt, & Martin, 2004; Rojas, Shah, & Faber, 1996; Stouffer, 1955), the restriction of which often comprises the behavioral component of the third-person effect, it seemed likely both would influence third-person perceptions. After all, the consistent finding in support for rights research, that older people and women were more willing to restrict expression, suggests that they fear the consequences—violence, immorality, etc.—of exposing certain groups to certain content. This mirrors Davison’s (1983) dramatic conclusion that the third-person effect has long stirred apprehension among peoples in history. In reflecting on wars and political intrigue, he suggested that many leaders’ or people’s actions were grounded in their fear of what others might do, or how they might respond. Given the unfortunate fact that we are more prone to victimization (or at least we fear it more) as we age, it would not be surprising if age was positively related to third-person effects, both perceptual and behavioral. In surveys of U.S. adults, though, age has never been consistently, significantly predictive of the third-person effect itself (Driscoll & Salwen, 1997; Hoffner et al., 2001; Lambe & McLeod, 2005; Rojas et al., 1996; Rucinski & Salmon, 1990; Salwen, 1998; Salwen & Dupagne, 2001, 2003; Tiedge et al., 1991). (Brosius and Engel’s [1996] survey of German adults did find a positive relationship between age and the magnitude of the third-person effect.) Moreover, in studies that presented adult respondents with multiple examples of media content, the directionality has been irregular, with age either positively or negatively related to the third-person effect, depending on the stimulus. Although some surveys have found that older adults expect to experience less influence on themselves and on others (Rucinski & Salmon, 1990; Salwen, 1998), these tend to focus solely on news stories, perhaps because older people choose not to expose themselves to the types of entertainment media—rap music, violent programming—generally studied.

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Similarly, gender seems unimportant in determining the third-person effect size (Rucinski & Salmon, 1990; Salwen & Dupagne, 2001, 2003). Gender differences occurred in estimating effects of violent television on others, however, with females perceiving violence to have a strong impact on others (Hoffner et al., 2001). But Salwen and Dupagne (2001) found the opposite for news about Y2K; perhaps women perceived others were not thoughtful enough to be worried about the possible technology glitches predicted. Studies of pornography effects have found significant gender differences (Lee & Tamborini, 2005; Lo & Wei, 2002) in estimates of effects on self, with females perceiving greater effects than males on themselves and greater effects on “other males” than other females (Lo & Wei). Hoffner et al.’s notion of conflation may explain these inconsistencies: “The sex differences in third-person effects may reflect both self–other differences and male– female differences in perceived effects” (p. 296). Picture a couple responding in drastically distinct ways to a comedic television portrayal of sexual harassment; it is not surprising that their reactions to survey questions shortly thereafter would hinge on their recent disagreement with their mate. Survey research, in particular, is fraught with such “top of the head” responses (Zaller, 1992). On the other hand, perhaps the gender gaps merely reflect reality. After all, in considering these differences, it becomes clear that women are behaving in ways that society expects women to behave—that is, scorning pornography and violence. Regarding pornography, at least, the third-person perception may well mirror a recognition that such content does affect males and females in dissimilar ways (Scharrer, 2002), often to the detriment of women. Regardless of the underlying reason, it’s important to note that gender differences are not the norm when it comes to the third-person effect.1 Education

Of the sociodemographic variables studied, education is the most closely tied to the size of third-person effects. That is not a great revelation, of course. Education is an easy heuristic, with our own level of education particularly accessible when it comes to attempting to gauge comparisons to others. Therefore, individuals with more years of education tend to estimate significantly larger third-person effects than their less-educated counterparts (Gunther, 1995; Rucinski & Salmon, 1990; Tiedge et al., 1991; Willnat, 1996). Still, in surveys of adults, the education variable is just as of1

Other demographics with no apparent relationship to third-person perceptions are income (Rucinski & Salmon, 1990; Salwen & Dupagne, 2003); race or ethnicity (Park & Salmon, 2005; Salwen, 1998; Salwen & Dupagne, 2003); political orientation or affiliation (Rojas et al., 1996); marital status (Park & Salmon, 2005); and number of children (Salwen & Dupagne, 2001).

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15

ten unrelated to the effect (Innes & Zeitz, 1988; Rojas et al., 1996; Salwen, 1998; Salwen & Dupagne, 2003). When moderator variables involving other self-perceptions of cognitive abilities or activities are entered into the equation, education’s effect evaporates (Salwen & Dupagne, 2001). Given these findings, it may be that the same individual characteristics that lead to strong third-person effects also lead these individuals to seek out higher levels of education. Hence, there is at times a seeming relationship between education and third-person effects, and a seemingly nonexistent relationship at other times. After all, not everyone who may have the proclivity to seek out higher levels of education also has the opportunity. It is likely, then, that education may serve to some extent as a heuristic that sometimes triggers an individual to consider his or her intelligence level compared to that of “others.” College students, in numerous experiments, have been asked to estimate a message’s effects on themselves, on other students at their university, and on residents of a state or region. Third-person effects are routine. Indeed, a meta-analysis of 32 third-person effect studies found a significant difference in the magnitude of perceptions, with college student samples producing larger third-person effects than noncollege student samples (Paul, Salwen, & Dupagne, 2000). By asking students to compare themselves to people not in college, researchers cue the education heuristic. In explaining the difference between college and noncollege samples, Paul et al., (2000) contended that students either perceive themselves as less vulnerable than counterparts not attending the university, or their desire to conform increases the likelihood that they will “express the desirable response that they are more resistant to media messages than others” (p. 78). Another possibility is that the limited range of education levels in a student sample masks an intervening variable. That is, they are all pursuing a college education, so it may be that a third variable underlies the pursuit of higher education levels and a tendency to perceive strong third-person effects. Alternatively, we suggest that college students may perceive themselves and their student peers to be surely more intelligent (they presume) than people their age not in college (Perloff, 1993b) and certainly more savvy about media matters than their parents’ age group. Thus, the greater magnitude may be an interaction of both self-perceived expertise and social distance (discussed in chap. 6). The dearth of clear demographic trends (along with specific tests of more predictive moderating variables) led Salwen and Dupagne (2001) to conclude that “sociodemographic variables are not of overriding theoretical significance” (p. 228). Their argument, that we compare ourselves to others based on perceived differences such as intelligence rather than clearly defined differences such as years of formal education, supports the notion that heuristics often play a role in third-person estimations.

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PERSONAL EXPERTISE OR KNOWLEDGE

It is human nature to compare ourselves to others and, in most cases, find ourselves to be superior in some way. Even the knowledge that someone else has more years of formal education—the most common measure of the education variable—can be dismissed with the rationalization that she or he has little common sense, for example. Thus, the idea that perceived differences in intelligence or knowledge should hold more explanatory power than formal education in third-person effects intuits well. Davison (1983) elucidated the reasoning in his original Public Opinion Quarterly article: In a sense, we are all experts on those subjects that matter to us, in that we have information not available to other people. This information may not be of a factual or technical nature; it may have to do with our own experiences, likes, and dislikes. Other people, we reason, do not know what we know. Therefore, they are more likely to be influenced by the media. (p. 9)

Research examining perceived personal knowledge with a variety of conceptualizations has supported this expectation (see Table 2.1). At least four studies, all surveys of adults, found that individuals who felt they were knowledgeable about a particular topic were likely to estimate larger thirdperson perceptions than those who admitted they thought they had less knowledge. (In discussing previous findings throughout this book, we disTABLE 2.1 Individual Traits’ Influence on Magnitude of Third-Person Effects Trait

Studies

Directionality

Education

Rucinski & Salmon (1990) Tiedge et al. (1991) Willnat (1996)

+

Expertise/knowledge

Driscoll & Salwen (1997) Lasorsa (1989) Salwen & Dupagne (2001, 2003)

+

Exposure to news content

Price et al. (1997) Rucinski & Salmon (1990) Salwen (1998)

–

Desirability of outcome

David & Johnson (1998) David, Morrison, Johnson, & Ross (2002) Salwen & Dupagne (1999)

–

Interest / involvement

Mutz (1989) Perloff (1989)

+

Note. All studies cited were surveys of adults, with the exception of David and Johnson (1998) and David et al. (2002), which were experiments on college students.

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17

cuss only results that were statistically significant, meaning they were not attributable to chance. Other studies may have found insignificant results using the same variables, and we cite those to provide contrast to the significant ones.) For one study of adults, several types of knowledge—technical, current events, and specific event knowledge—played roles in influencing thirdperson perceptions (Driscoll & Salwen, 1997). Interestingly, the topic in question was often controversial; for example, news coverage of the 1995 O. J. Simpson murder trial (Driscoll & Salwen), predictions of technological problems associated with the year 2000 (Y2K; Salwen & Dupagne, 2001), or a made-for-television miniseries titled “Amerika,” which depicted life in the United States after a fictitious Soviet takeover (Lasorsa, 1989). In each study, respondents were asked to state how much they felt they personally knew about the topic. Because the self-perception of being particularly knowledgeable about a subject is generally believed to be the variable affecting third-person perception, many researchers did not ask factual questions to determine the validity of these estimates. The “Amerika” panel study of adults in Austin, Texas, however, merits more attention because it actually did attempt to test the validity of respondents’ own, real political knowledge levels, as measured by an unspecified four-item index (with a regrettable coefficient alpha of .62, suggesting either a major problem with the political knowledge measure or the sample). Perceived expertise was not directly comparable—responses consisted of confidence levels in questions about the content and characters in the miniseries itself. The discrepancy between the two concepts is not necessarily important, however. What matters is that those viewers who perceived they knew more about “Amerika” were more than twice as likely to exhibit a third-person effect as those who admitted they had a relatively low level of familiarity with the program. When Lasorsa (1989) analyzed the difference in third-person estimations by real political knowledge, roughly the same percentage of those in the low and high groups expected third-person effects to occur. In other words, then, what we perceive we know (much as Davison [1983] predicted) is the key, not what we actually do know. Education, by this analysis, should be relatively trivial in the third-person realm, with a few possible topical exceptions. We might expect that uncontroversial topics would afford people the luxury of comfortably studying the matter without pesky arguments to challenge what they think they know. These studies suggest, though, that individuals are willing to assume a perceived level of expertise whether or not they are actually more knowledgeable than others, or whether a consensus or a controversy exists. Certainly, this assumption seems to be a positive, powerful predictor of the magnitude of third-person effects. Or is it likely that survey respondents are merely posturing for the interviewer?

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CHAPTER 2

Self-Enhancement Motivation

Whether self-perceived knowledge is real or merely bravado, it supports the most commonly posited explanation of why third-person perceptions occur. Numerous third-person effect studies have examined the extent to which the phenomenon is the product of our desire to maintain a healthy perception of self. Known as self-enhancement (Brown, 1986), the idea is that individuals are motivated to evaluate themselves partly on the basis of comparison to others. Because our tendency is to perceive ourselves superior in some way, we tend to downgrade estimations of positive perceptions of others while boosting the same positive perceptions of the self (Alicke et al., 1995). In the realm of third-person effects, self-enhancement may appear in the form of the “need to assume that the self is unaffected by communications” (Perloff, 1993b, p. 178); it may conversely or simultaneously result in the inaccurate estimation of those communications on others, depending on situational or message-related factors that we discuss in subsequent chapters. A closely related concept is the idea of self-defensive response, which is thought to explain the first-person findings often produced by socially desirable content (Duck & Mullin, 1995). In other words, if a message is undesirable, such as violent pornography, we are likely to estimate in a self-enhancing way by telling ourselves that it has no effect on us, but surely it does on others. This perception may also be the result of genuine experience (Johansson, 2005). For example, a person who has been exposed to pornography and has noted no changes in his or her own behavior may conclude that inasmuch as pornography, which is a societal problem after all, does not affect me, it must be a problem because it affects other people. Conversely, for a desirable message, such as that produced in a preventive health campaign, we tend to defend our ego by assuming that the message does have (slight) effects on ourselves, but that others will not be intelligent enough to grasp its importance. We also may assume that we are more valuable members of society than are typical citizens. This being the case, a positive message, merely by virtue of being positive, would be a better “normative fit” (Reid & Hogg, 2005) for us than for other people. Therefore, it has a greater impact on us than on others. Optimistic bias, the assumption that one will be more likely than others to experience positive things and others are more prone to negative events (Weinstein, 1980, 1989), is closely related to the self-enhancement motivation. Both are grounded in a desire to make ourselves feel comparatively superior. Although Gunther and Mundy (1993; see also Brosius & Engel, 1996) argued that optimistic bias is a driving force behind the third-person effect, other studies have found no significant relationship between the two (Chapin, 2000; Salwen & Dupagne, 2003). Other scholars have thus focused on the broader motivation of self-enhancement. Based on lack of

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19

clear findings and strong conceptual linkages between third-person perceptions and biased optimism, Meirick (2005b) concluded that optimistic bias merely reflects the underlying self-enhancement motivation. Early on, scholars studying the third-person effect—thinking, no doubt, of Davison’s (1983) explanation for perceiving ourselves as experts—seized the notion of self-enhancement as an underlying mechanism for the effect. Numerous studies have either attempted to determine the self-enhancement motivation’s role or have argued that it is the explanatory mechanism (Atwood, 1994; Cho & Han, 2004; Duck, Hogg, & Terry, 1995; Duck & Mullin, 1995; Duck, Terry, & Hogg, 1995; Gunther & Mundy, 1993; Gunther & Thorson, 1992; Hoorens & Ruiter, 1996; Peiser & Peter, 2001; Reid & Hogg, 2005; White, 1997). In a series of experiments, Meirick (2005b) created a threat to participants’ self-worth, then measured subsequent first- and third-person effects and, finding that the correlation between the two effects was positively related to the amount of threat, he argued that if “the relationship between first- and third-person effects is spurious, it appears that the third variable driving them both is the need for self-enhancement” (p. 479). One way to examine how self-enhancement may influence judgments related to the third-person effect is to look at the individual traits that influence ratings of a message’s effect on the self. Self-perceived knowledge is, again, a key factor in determining whether the content has influenced the self, but it is negative, indicating little if any influence on self (Price & Tewksbury, 1996; Salwen & Dupagne, 2001)—or, perhaps more accurately, a backlash effect. The more we think we know, in other words, the less likely we are to be affected by a message that probably tells us something we already know. Perceived simple common sense has the same effect ( McLeod, Detenber, & Eveland, 2001), as does self-esteem (David & Johnson, 1998; Duck & Mullin, 1995; see Table 2.2). People who believe that they possess high levels of knowledge or common sense do not think that undesirable messages have any impact on their attitudes. As Table 2.3 indicates, however, this knowledge does not affect the individual’s consideration of the message’s effect on others. Surely the relationship between perceived knowledge, common sense, or self-esteem and estimated effects on self supports the self-enhancement motivation. As McLeod et al. (2001) noted, “The role of common sense for the self implies a more sophisticated, conditional effects perspective of media influence on the self” (p. 690). If self-enhancement operated by degrading others as well as increasing one’s own capability, though, wouldn’t we expect to see the converse pattern of effects on estimations of others? That is, if we are motivated by self-enhancement, there should be a significant, positive relationship between perceived knowledge and the level to which others will be affected. Unfortunately, it is difficult to ascertain the extent of self-enhancement’s influence because it is simply not tenable to ask individuals if they perceive

20

CHAPTER 2 TABLE 2.2 Variables Influencing Estimated Effects On Self

Trait

Studies

Directionality

Expertise/knowledge

McLeod et al. (2001)* Price & Tewksbury (1996)* Salwen & Dupagne (2001)

–

Exposure to news content

Price et al. (1997)* Rucinski & Salmon (1990) Salwen & Dupagne (2001)

+

Age

Rucinski & Salmon (1990) Salwen (1998)

–

Interest/involvement

Price & Tewksbury (1996)* Salwen (1998)

+

Note. Asterisk indicates study conducted with college student subjects.

TABLE 2.3 Variables Influencing Estimated Effects On Others Trait

Studies

Directionality

Exposure to entertainment content

Lambe & McLeod (2005) McLeod et al. (2001)* Price et al. (1997)*

+

Interest / involvement

Perloff (1989)* Price & Tewksbury (1996)* Rucinski & Salmon (1990) Salwen (1998) Willnat (1996)

+

Age

Rucinski & Salmon (1990) Salwen (1998)

–

Religiosity

Golan (2002)*

+

Note. Asterisk indicates study conducted with college student subjects.

themselves superior to others. One study, however, did ask subjects to be conscious of and to try to avoid making self-serving judgments, but to no avail—third-person perceptions remained (David, Liu, & Myser, 2004). Thus, the motivation’s role is inferred, not directly tested. Researchers extrapolate from the desirability of messages and whether individuals judge it is smart to be affected by them or if they are potentially harmful: “Perceptions of message influence on self and other vary in self-serving ways according to specific characteristics of the advertisement and the perceiver” (Duck, Terry, &

21

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Hogg, 1995, p. 321). A more subtle means of examining self-enhancement motivations is the perception of others’ frequency and reasons for viewing television, which is often presumed to be an activity favored by the less intelligent. Individuals tend to perceive that others watch more television than they do (Peiser & Peter, 2000), and they attribute that viewing to needs for companionship, escape, and habit, while maintaining that when they watch TV, it’s to gain information or for other purposive reasons (Peiser & Peter, 2001). Finally individuals believe that others are far more susceptible to undesirable messages than they are themselves (Shah, Faber, & Youn, 1999). Using this kind of deduction, then, we can conclude that although there is a good deal of support for self-enhancement motivation, its role remains disputed. Other studies have suggested more complex explanations for why individuals tend to the third-person effect (David & Johnson, 1998; Eveland & McLeod, 1999; Gunther, 1991) or what influences its magnitude (Peiser & Peter, 2001). For instance, Eveland and McLeod’s thorough review of the literature led them to the conclusion that “maybe the ego-defensive explanation, but not the ego-enhancement explanation, is consistent with the findings to date” (p. 318). Their preference for the ego-defensive explanation is based on the relative lack of support for the first-person perception. We discuss the other explanations later in this chapter. EXPOSURE TO CONTENT

Considering that the entire premise of the third-person effect rests on the (anticipated) exposure to a media message, it probably seems obvious that this concept has repeatedly been a predictive variable in the magnitude of the effect. The fact that it’s our own exposure to the content in question, though, makes this finding more intriguing. We aren’t watching violent television for 8 hours a day, say, and expecting that others do the same and basing estimates of its effects on them in that assumption. Rather, the exposure to content here is the extent to which we, ourselves, are exposed—not whether “others” are. Either of two arguments could be made about the direction of influence we should expect exposure to content to have on the third-person effect. First, if we spend much of our waking hours exposing ourselves to some type of content, such as political news or pornography, then we have a good idea of what comprises that content. Knowing this, we should be able to guess whether others should be greatly affected by its negative aspects, while congratulating ourselves for remaining unchanged. This disposition could result in a large third-person perception. Second, however, is the argument that if we consume comparatively little political news or pornography, we might assume that others spend much more time viewing these things. Naturally, these others should be more likely to be influenced by the content, if only because they see more of it, which produces a third-person perception.

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Which argument is more accurate? The answer seems to be that both have explanatory value. Researchers have put forth both arguments for mere exposure to certain types of entertainment media and found support particularly for the second argument. In the case of news media, neither argument seems to suffice. Exposure to news has generally been measured as attention or surveillance. Use of the media for surveillance or attention to the news is negatively related to the magnitude of third-person effects. In an experiment with three sets of “bad news” stimuli, surveillance was significant in two and produced negative effects on third-person perceptions in all three (Price, Huang, & Tewksbury, 1997). Other studies of adults’ attitudes about political news stories during presidential elections point to similar findings, with Rucinski and Salmon’s 1990 survey for newspaper attention and Salwen (1998) both reporting a negative effect on third-person perceptions for news interest. Certainly, the respondents in each of these studies say they have some sort of reliance (varying very slightly by operational definitions) on the news media. It is quite probable that they perceive the media to be “a personally useful and trustworthy source of information” (Price et al., 1997, p. 535), meaning it is acceptable to admit influence on the self in this case. When we examine the perceived effects on self, individuals high in news media use report that the news stories in these studies did have a significant impact on their own attitudes, but not on others’ (Price et al., 1997; Rucinski & Salmon, 1990; Salwen & Dupagne, 2001). Although this initially seems counterintuitive, if an individual who thinks that the news media are trustworthy says she relies heavily on them for information, and she believes they influence her attitudes, this supports the long-standing contention (Perloff, 1989) that people will admit to being influenced by messages when they perceive it is smart or acceptable to do so. When we turn to individuals’ self-reported exposure to media for entertainment, things change dramatically. Here, participants in third-person effects studies tend to perceive that others—regardless of how “others” are defined—are significantly more likely to be affected by media messages (see Table 2.3). It should be noted, of course, that this is true of negative or undesirable media content, which comprises the majority of third-person research. To what are those others perceived to be susceptible? That is sometimes unspecified in the studies we found. Price et al. (1997) examined individual use of the media for entertainment, including enjoyment and social gratification, finding that people whose exposure constituted these reasons were more likely to think others would be strongly influenced by news messages. To be sure, some of the students studied might find news a source of entertainment, enjoyment, or social utility, but Price and his colleagues asked about reasons for media use prior to the students’ exposure to the news stories in question, indicating that the simple reason for individuals’

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23

media consumption affects the levels of susceptibility they attribute to others. Rojas et al. (1996) also found overall television viewing to be positively related to expected media violence effects on others. It’s easier to understand McLeod et al.’s (2001) findings, which asked college student subjects to estimate their own and other students’ exposure specifically to violent rap and “death metal” music. The more exposure they attributed to other students, the greater effects the subjects perceived on others (see also Wu & Koo, 2001). Not surprisingly, the same subjects reported that exposure had no influence whatsoever on themselves. The researchers did not analyze the self’s exposure in predicting effects on others. A subsequent study found that college students expected antisocial content, such as movies with gratuitous violence, pornographic videos, beer ads advocating consumption, and gangster rap, would have great effects on themselves, probably because they (said they) had limited exposure to such content (Lambe & McLeod, 2005). Of course, the students recognized that these messages are socially defined—and, no doubt, defined by the researchers—as antisocial. For the most part, those students perceived exposure more important than the level of “antisocialness” of the content for others their age. The college students’ findings regarding exposure and antisocial content were spotty for people their parents’ age. Lambe and McLeod suggested that their participants considered a sort of interaction between exposure and susceptibility, which varied between susceptible peers and their less exposed, less susceptible parents (we return to this in chap. 3). Media Effects Schema

Considering the lack of social desirability in content such as misogynistic and violent rap or metal music, as well as the fact that negative or harmful content generally produces third-person effects, some have argued that individuals possess a schema of media effects similar to that of the old magic bullet theory (Eveland & McLeod, 1999; Eveland, Nathanson, Detenber, & McLeod, 1999; McLeod, Eveland, & Nathanson, 1997; Perloff, 1993b). We discuss social desirability and message content further in chap. 3. This schema incorporates beliefs about both others in the audience and the media themselves. Rather than directly comparing ourselves to others in estimating influence—much as the self-enhancement motivation suggests— these scholars contend that we evaluate ourselves separately from others (see also Heider, 1958). Actually, it is unclear whether we spend much time evaluating ourselves at all, if we operate from a media effects schema: We simply “know” whether we are influenced by a message. In determining whether others should be affected by a message, we adopt a naïve notion that “exposure equals a direct effect” (Eveland & McLeod, 1999, p. 330), at least in the case of socially undesirable content. Lasorsa (1989) connected

24

CHAPTER 2

these ideas to perceived expertise, following Davison (1983), noting that we may assume it is our “special experience that protects [us] from media influence while other less knowledgeable, active audience members are more susceptible to media influence” (p. 374). Thus, the cognitive processing involved among those adhering to media effects schema should, in fact, be low or barely exist. This lack of thoughtful comparison is rooted in the psychological phenomenon of the fundamental attribution error, in which we (think that we) fully explicate our own reasons for behaving in a certain way but attribute others’ behavior to their inherent flaws rather than, say, environmental influences (Ross, 1977). Attribution theory suggests we rely on heuristic, often external cues to judge expectations and explanations of others’ behavior. For ourselves, we engage in systematic processing, evaluating pros and cons and considering consequences of our own behavior. The idea of separate strategies for evaluating self versus others has appeared in conjunction with research on persuasive messages as well as undesirable, entertainment-based messages (Duck, Hogg, & Terry, 1995; Gunther & Mundy, 1993; Meirick, 2004). The finding that an internal locus of control seems to increase individuals’ third-person perceptions (Haridakis & Rubin, 2005) also seems to support the notion of a separate processing strategy. Resisting persuasion supports the media effects schema, which inherently assumes the media have a negative influence. Social judgment theory suggests that the downward comparison we make of others to ourselves entails the necessity of sifting potential media influences through self-schema (Nisbett & Ross, 1980). If we operate on the premise that allowing an unknown source or a touching message to affect our opinions connotes weakness, or willingness to conform, or lack of wherewithal, then judging ourselves unmovable by persuasive messages also supports the self-enhancement motivation. The media effects schema explanation of why third-person effects exist for negative messages certainly has appeal. Merely observing public reactions to excessive violence in video games such as “Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas” in 2004 and the subsequent revelation in 2005 that the game secretly included a feature depicting graphic sex provides a vivid illustration of this possible mechanism. When two Columbine High School students in Littleton, Colorado, massacred 13 other students and a teacher before killing themselves in April 1999, both violent video games and the rock music star Marilyn Manson were blamed as the boys’ impetus. It’s clear that many people seem to perceive certain aspects of the media through a powerful effects lens—at least when they look at those hypothetical effects on others. On the other hand, though, the media effects schema offers no immediate, persuasive rationale for why first-person effects occur with desirable messages, unlike the self-enhancement motivation, which provides a parsi-

RECEIVER VARIABLES

25

monious account for both types of content. Eveland and McLeod (1999) suggested that the reason studies have not consistently found first-person effects for socially desirable messages is that we are unwilling to recognize or to admit that media have impacts on ourselves. Following this argument, if self-enhancement is the mechanism underlying the third-person perception, then the media effects schema in the case of a desirable message should lead us to the conclusion that others will be influenced merely because it comes from the media. Another possible explanation is an interaction between the level of known self-exposure to a type of media content and the level of perceived social desirability of that content. For example, an individual may perceive that educational programming on PBS is quite positive. This person may also have made the conscious decision to not own a television. In such cases, perceived first-person effects would be unlikely. Therefore, we admit some effect on ourselves because it is positive and therefore it’s smart (self-enhancing) to be affected, which results in either minimal first-person effects or evens out at no significant differences in perception. As Eveland and McLeod noted, it is important to consider both the “social desirability of the specific content … [and] the desirability of being influenced by that content” (p. 329). We also suggest that, in addition to the desirability of being influenced, the perceived necessity of being influenced may play a role. For example, a public service announcement advocating regular contributions to Save the Children may be perceived as socially desirable. And making such donations may be perceived as a desirable thing to do. But an individual who was already making contributions to Save the Children, upon exposure to the PSA, may perceive that it is not necessary at all for him to be influenced. Still, if the media effects schema behaves much like the magic bullet theory, then the default assumption would be that others should be more influenced than ourselves, except in the case of very, very desirable messages. For media content that is less than harmful or undesirable, then, the media effects schema seems a bit less convincing. Perhaps the media effects schema better explains the behavioral component of the third-person effect more than it does the perception. We return to this point in chapter 3. Likelihood of Exposure

As persuasive as these exposure-to-content studies may be, exposure is more often insignificant as a predictor of third-person perceptions (Borzekowski, Flora, Feighery, & Schooler, 1999; Rojas et al., 1996; Rucinski & Salmon, 1990; Salwen & Dupagne, 2001, 2003). Some of these studies focused on negative content as well, such as children’s exposure to cigarette advertising (Borzekowski et al., 1999) or violence in media (Hoffner & Buchanan, 1999;

26

CHAPTER 2

Rojas et al., 1996), which suggests that exposure should be significantly related to third-person effects as it is for particularly harmful content. It is not surprising that we find exposure to be a strong factor in content as dramatically undesirable as “death metal” music, after all. But for exposure to be a key to the third-person perception, it ought to play a role in wider-ranging types of messages. Furthermore, the idea of exposure implies the assumption that the “others” in question—whoever they might be—have an equal chance of being exposed (and apparently frequently exposed) to the stimulus content. Perhaps this unrealistic expectation serves as a limit to the amount of influence that exposure is presumed to have either on oneself or on certain others. The notion of limits and possibilities as a function of individual differences was put forth by Peiser and Peter (2001). They argued that our potential for third-person perceptions is deeply affected by the specific social perception invoked by a particular media message, which in turn acts on individual traits to either increase or decrease the magnitude of third-person perceptions. In articulating this mechanism, Peiser and Peter drew on social psychology research that indicates reality constraints, such as environment and, possibly, who comprises the “other,” influence which social perceptions are triggered when people are asked to make social judgments (Goethals, Messick, & Allison, 1991). Thus, if college students who listen to violent rap music are asked to make judgments about whether such music might affect people their parents’ age, the students are likely to say that age group should not be affected simply because they do not expose themselves to the genre. Or, as Peiser and Peter explained: “Those who watch television less often should be in a better position—and thus more likely—to perceive that others are more influenced by advertising than they are themselves” because the light viewers know heavy viewers automatically see more TV commercials (2001, p. 157). To examine their hypothesis, Peiser and Peter (2001) surveyed German adults on their television-viewing behaviors and included traditional thirdperson effect items for those viewing behaviors. They found, overall, thirdperson perceptions for hours of viewing and for most media uses and gratifications (see Katz, Blumler, & Gurevitch, 1973; McQuail, Blumler, & Brown, 1972; Rubin, 1983, 2002), from entertainment to habit to escape, but first-person perceptions for news and purposive viewing. When the researchers added perceptual position variables—consisting of demographics, personal desirability (of viewing behaviors, not content), frequency of viewing, and whether they tended to watch by themselves or with others—individual differences in third-person perceptions loomed large. Personal desirability and “life situation” (education, age, household size, or viewing situation) interacted to produce first- or third-person perceptions of varying sizes depending on the media use in question. Separate analyses of these variables on self and others indicated that perceptual positions were much more im-

27

RECEIVER VARIABLES

portant in the determination of effects on self. For self, the handful of “perceptual position” variables accounted for highly significant amounts of variance in each TV viewing use (R2 ranged from .10 to .43; Peiser & Peter, 2001). Thus, the researchers concluded that limits/possibilities of exposure, along with the personal desirability of a behavior (they did not measure likelihood of influence), places a realistic constraint on the magnitude of third-person perception, but does not necessarily determine whether the perception occurs. More traditional, direct measures of third-person perceptions, including perceived frequency of exposure, support this conclusion. Researchers studying third-person perceptions based on the idea that the more we expect a certain group is exposed to a certain message, the greater effect that message will have on them, have produced convincing evidence for the phenomenon. In 17 of 18 social distance groups (based on age) across two studies, college student subjects thought that others would be more likely to expose themselves to violent or misogynistic rap, violent or misogynistic death metal, and violent action movies (Eveland et al., 1999). Students expected that the only group less likely than themselves to hear this content was people 40 years their senior, probably a realistic judgment considering that the stimuli were rap and death metal music. Clearly, if we don’t hear such music, we cannot be directly influenced by it, and the findings supported this, with strong third-person perceptions produced in every condition except for those middle-aged folks. Eveland and his colleagues then tied exposure to the media effects schema discussed previously, which makes sense considering the content used as stimuli. The very idea, however, that others are more likely to consume socially undesirable or negative messages (Brosius & Engel, 1996) supports the self-enhancement motivation. Not only are we too smart to be influenced by such garbage, we are too smart even to listen to it (very often, anyway). INVOLVEMENT AND INTEREST

Involvement is a long-established, key construct in most models of persuasion (Chaiken, Liberman, & Eagly, 1989; McGuire, 1989; Petty & Cacioppo, 1986; Sherif & Sherif, 1967). Basically, the more involved we are with an issue or object, the more systematically we will process new information regarding the issue. We can think of interest as either a related concept with much lower threshold levels or as a prelude to involvement. To be sure, we must be involved with the topic before processing can begin; people who are not involved or perceive the topic not salient to themselves will rely on heuristics or peripheral cues rather than spend time and thought processes on a related message. Davison (1983) implied that we see third persons as inherently less involved than ourselves when he noted that “the propagandist may try to

28

CHAPTER 2

manipulate the behavior of these third persons by apparently seeking to influence someone else” (p. 3). In this example, the propagandist relies on the assumption that the third persons are peripheral-cue processors—individuals who, when faced with a message that isn’t particularly salient, will rely on heuristics to make decisions or adjust their attitudes. In this case, the “someone else” and her potential behavior becomes a heuristic cue. As Perloff (1993b) noted, involvement figures prominently in social judgment theory (Sherif & Hovland, 1961; Sherif & Sherif, 1967; Sherif, Sherif, & Nebergall, 1965). When individuals are highly involved in an issue, the more likely they are to distinguish between attitude-discrepant and attitude-congruent messages, either contrasting the message from their own position or assimilating it—that is, perceiving that the message advocates a view closer to one’s position than it actually does. The notion of evaluating a message in terms of its match to our own attitudes clearly supports the third-person effect’s assumption that we consider message content. According to social judgment theory, individuals with high ego-involvement in an issue are difficult to persuade, a result produced in a number of third-person effect studies: Highly involved individuals tend to perceive that messages will have greater influence on others’ attitudes than on their own, which supports the idea of social judgment. Because involvement holds such sway within the realm of persuasion, it is certainly not unexpected to find it powerfully connected to the third-person effect. Early studies found strong, positive relationships between levels of personal involvement, perceived importance, or interest in news stories and third-person perceptions (Matera & Salwen, 1995; Mutz, 1989; Perloff, 1989). On the other hand, Salwen (1998) found a significant, negative relationship between interest in presidential campaign news and third-person perceptions, which he explained through the ubiquity of campaign information, both interpersonal and mediated—a finding that supports the likelihood of exposure concept, if we assume that political campaign news is desirable. Although the bulk of the influence of involvement or interest is generally attributed to effects on others (Perloff, 1989; Price & Tewksbury, 1996; Rucinski & Salmon, 1990; Salwen, 1998; Willnat, 1996), for some news topics, interested individuals perceive that a message has greater effects on themselves than their (presumably) less-interested counterparts (Price & Tewksbury, 1996; Salwen, 1998). In cases where self was more affected, the media content in question was composed of news coverage of national news cases—news about political figures or a sensational murder trial—and it is likely that the research participants were not involved in the issues to the same extent of those in earlier studies, although they certainly may have been interested. Even the 1996 presidential election Salwen studied was, by and large, a foregone conclusion, with the popular President Bill Clinton running for a second term against longtime Kansas Senator Bob Dole.

RECEIVER VARIABLES

29

Interest, then, is often transient. Much like attitudes, which can be molded and changed, interest in a particular topic may wax and wane. Whether the fluctuation in interest affects third-person perceptions has not been studied. Two experiments on the same topic, conducted a decade apart, provide some evidence that topic may matter more than interest levels in predicting third-person perceptions. In 1993, the pop singer Michael Jackson settled a civil suit with parents who alleged he molested their adolescent son. At that time, an experiment using a college student sample found large third-person perceptions, using a summary of a news story suggesting the news coverage made the charges seem more serious than they were (Price & Tewksbury, 1996). The significant effects appeared despite the fact that subjects indicated the Jackson charges were of very low importance to themselves. In 2005, Jackson went to trial on additional child molestation charges, sparking a news frenzy. College students who read a story about the graphic sexual details included in the court testimony also produced highly significant third-person perceptions, although this time many of the students said they cared about the verdict (Andsager, White, & Kuennen, 2005). Considering the noxious topic of child molestation, though, it is likely that the content superceded the effects of interest levels. In comparison, when individuals are solidly allied with one side of an issue and involvement is high, the likelihood of persuading them to consider a different viewpoint is low. The more involved they are, however, it seems the more worried they are about messages influencing others outside their immediate circle. Perloff (1989) conducted a fascinating experiment in which he purposively selected subjects who were thoroughly involved in the topic at hand—pro-Israeli and pro-Palestinian students who were also members of their respective student organizations. In addition to anticipating huge third-person perceptions with “others” described as neutral individuals, both groups of partisans thought neutral viewers would evaluate the opponent’s group more favorably, recall facts that made the opponent look better than themselves, and feel more favorable toward members of the opponent’s ethnic group. A follow-up experiment found that, in fact, neutral viewers did none of these things. Although Perloff’s experiment did not measure the behavioral component, his findings undoubtedly supported Davison’s (1983) notion of influencing the behavior of involved people by directing a message at their nemesis. Personal Vulnerability

A motivation for perceiving the potential of greater third-person effects when one is highly involved in an issue may be self-protection. Clearly, the Israeli–Palestinian conflict that Perloff (1989) tapped was more likely grounded in protection (of ethnicity, history, lives) than enhancement. An-

30

CHAPTER 2

other arena in which involvement is generally high is that of body image for young women, which sometimes brings dire personal consequences. David and Johnson (1998), in studying how college women react to messages about ideal body weight to dangerous weight loss—a range of desirable to undesirable messages—have found that their subjects worked to distinguish between social risks, such as being criticized by others, and personal risks, including physical damage that accompanies eating disorders. The more undesirable the message became, the more the women focused on personal risk. Much like the partisan subjects in Perloff’s experiment, then, these female subjects also exhibited signs of cognitive processing regarding these potentially threatening messages, leading the researchers to conclude that, although “self-esteem can be associated better with the motivational component of the third-person bias, the personal vulnerability factors [social physique anxiety, weight-to-height ratio, physique monitoring] align themselves more closely to the cognitive bias component” (David & Johnson, p. 54). The cognitive bias component, of course, is the notion that we tend to enhance our perceptions of ourselves by minimizing others’ abilities both to be smart about a message and to resist persuasion or negative influences— which brings us back to self-enhancement motivations. SUMMARY

From the beginning of third-person effect study, scholars have been intrigued by the individual traits that seem to influence the extent to which research participants indicate that self, others, and third-person perceptions are affected by various message content. None of the traits measured has behaved consistently across populations, stimuli, or context, particularly sociodemographic variables. We can say with some confidence, however, that individuals’ involvement with (or interest in) an issue is often closely related to the increased effects they perceive on themselves and others, which usually influences the magnitude of third-person effects. Individuals who think they are knowledgeable about a topic believe they are resistant to message influence, and considering that perceived knowledge often results in greater perceptual discrepancies, it is probable that they expect others— who aren’t as informed—to be easily influenced. These reasonably consistent results are in line with theories of persuasion. Although scholars have not yet come to consensus on the mechanism underlying the third-person effect, self-enhancement motivations appear to be supported by the bulk of research. Media schema theory seems to explain findings regarding socially undesirable messages, but they, too, may be founded in notions of self-enhancement. Exploration of the message and context variables should provide further enlightenment on this discussion, and we turn next to messages themselves.

3 Message Variables

A Japanese-produced leaflet used during World War II in an attempt to disengage African American troops from the U.S. war efforts serendipitously planted the seed for the third-person effect (Davison, 1983). The message appeared to have had a greater influence on White officers than on the intended audience, but the officers apparently expected it would affect the troops. Davison was more interested in the psychological phenomenon of self–other comparisons—for good reason—than that leaflet itself, and he mentioned message content only in passing in his seminal article. His explanation was based on a “persuasive communication (whether or not this communication is intended to be persuasive)” (p. 3), individuals exposed to such a message predict greater influence on others than on themselves. Thus, Davison acknowledged the polysemic nature of mediated communication; perhaps that is why he was not concerned with the message. The assumption inherent in third-person effects is that the message in question has the potential to lead to negative consequences. Therefore, researchers have studied a number of undesirable kinds of media content to examine the relationship between such content and third-person perceptions; conversely, socially desirable messages are studied with the expectation that they will encourage first-person perceptions. Although findings support these hypotheses most of the time, the relationship between message and perceived influence is not as clear-cut as it might seem at first blush. Indeed, a meta-analysis of third-person effect studies found no significant differences between desirable and undesirable content in third-person perception; the authors argued that desirability is likely a more multifaceted concept than scholars had conceived (Paul, Salwen, & 31

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Dupagne, 2000). Perloff (1999) further muddied these waters by noting that “constraints of experimental contexts” might “push participants away from admitting effects of undesirable messages” (p. 361). In other words, tried-and-true methodological artifacts such as social desirability and demand characteristics may mask the degree of perceived message undesirability. MEASURING MESSAGE DESIRABILITY

Perhaps this counterintuitive finding emerges because what is desirable and what is undesirable remains unclear. Few studies have asked their participants to rate the degree of desirability of a message, relying instead on the researchers’ assumptions. The invalidated assumption that certain content is, by definition, undesirable may not be shared by the research participants themselves. Without attitudinal measures of the message, we are placed in a predicament of determining desirability post hoc, a practice that disallows falsifiability. Paul and his colleagues (2000) coded the messages studied in their meta-analysis as desirable, undesirable, or neutral—although they recognized that their own conjectures were “of dubious validity” (p. 68). An experiment on the effects of images of thin models on female college students considered eating disorders an undesirable outcome (David, Morrison, Johnson, & Ross, 2002), but young women sometimes aspire to such control over their bodies (Brumberg, 1997). Finally, common sense suggests that prosocial messages are inherently desirable, but Duck and Mullin (1995) found that their subjects thought it was “undesirable, or at least ‘nerdy,’ to acknowledge influence from positive content showing people behaving prosocially” (emphasis added; p. 90). In directly testing whether messages presumed a priori to be desirable or undesirable were, in fact, perceived as such, Hoorens and Ruiter (1996) reported that their participants did rate desirable content as generally desirable—but, as in other studies, the judgment of “undesirable” content was murkier. Thus, the result of untested assumptions is a jumble of inconsistent findings that inhibit our understanding of what messages mean to the audience. Meirick (2005a) questioned whether socially desirable messages are effective per se; rather, he suggested that a self-serving bias interacts with such content to produce first-person perceptions: “In the respondent’s view, it is probably not prosocial messages’ effects driving predisposition; instead, these weak but well-intentioned messages have their effects when they reach already receptive minds (like their own)” (p. 840). For example, individuals were about equally likely to support restrictions on televised trials, television violence, and negative political advertising (Dupagne, Salwen, & Paul, 1999)—although researchers often label television violence undesirable and news, perhaps including televised trials, is generally considered neutral.

MESSAGE VARIABLES

33

But how accurate are those labels, and what consequences might they have for our perceptions of influence? An early study set out to determine the relationship between the potential harm a message might accrue and the subsequent size of third-person perceptions (Rucinski & Salmon, 1990). In a survey of adults, the researchers asked respondents to rate the perceived harm of negative political advertising, polls, political ads, news, and debates. Those ratings produced nearly exactly the reverse pattern when respondents rated how much influence the messages had over themselves and others, and perceived harm was unrelated to third-person perceptions although others were presumed to be more greatly influenced. Importantly, however, perceived harm was significantly, positively related to perceived influence on self and on others. In other words, if respondents thought harm could occur, they seemed to think that both they and the others would be influenced, not merely the others. The respondents were able to identify content as undesirable, therefore, but it did not increase the self–other perceptual discrepancy as we should expect. One explanation for the finding is that the single-item harm measure may allow the participants to focus on themselves, rather than having to consider the larger picture (Hitchon, Chang, & Harris, 1997). On the other hand, Brosius and Engel (1996) found that their participants assumed perceptual differences to be smaller when the benefit likelihood was considered positive (for example, advertising was stimulating rather than influential) rather than negative. Perceived harm to the electoral process might seem a bit esoteric to the average phone survey respondent, though. Surely we would be able to find clear third-person effects for an undesirable but concrete topic that audiences find easier to grasp. During the Michael Jackson child molestation trial in 2005, researchers studied perceived indecency of news articles (Andsager, White, & Kuennen, 2005). That study found that indecency was positively related to effects on self, although not on others. When Chia, Lu, and McLeod (2004) asked college students about a politician’s sexually explicit video that the students had rated erotic, dirty, and similar to pornography, they also found that their participants thought their own sexual attitudes would be more influenced than others’. When Gunther and Mundy (1993) asked participants to rate “how smart” it was to be influenced by a variety of messages, they found little relationship between social undesirability and perceived perceptual discrepancies. In a different experiment, news stories about health problems participants rated “controllable,” such as drug addiction, produced significant first-person perceptions, as opposed to diseases that one cannot easily prevent—pneumonia, for example—which produced third-person perceptions, although no clear findings emerged for estimated influence on self versus others (Andsager et al., 2006). Finally, even when adult research participants identified certain content as having potentially harmful or im-

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moral effects on others, the extent of that perceived harm or immorality produced no clear perceptual difference patterns (Lambe & McLeod, 2005; Salwen & Dupagne, 1999). Perhaps the most direct test of message desirability on third-person perceptions was an experiment conducted by Eveland and McLeod (1999). Using the lyrics of four rap music songs—violent, antiviolence, misogynistic, antimisogynistic—the researchers asked college students to rate the lyrics in terms of whether they were prosocial or antisocial. This study is a good example of why it’s necessary to ask participants to indicate the desirability of the message; although the lyrics were significantly different, the antisocial set was considered much more negative than the prosocial was positive. Eveland and McLeod concluded that “in the minds of our participants, being influenced by pro-social rap lyrics was not considered desirable enough” (p. 328, emphasis added). Despite this, the participants perceived that the antisocial messages would have far greater influence on others than themselves, whereas the (comparatively) prosocial messages produced very slight third-person perceptions. Thus, although the experiment provides support for the self-enhancement motivation1 in that antisocial content affected the participants far less than the prosocial messages and perceptual discrepancies were larger for antisocial lyrics, the problem of defining social desirability remains. To what degree is “prosocial” the same concept as social desirability? The term “antisocial” is often used to describe individuals; it is quite possible that Eveland and McLeod’s (1999) participants connoted the individual level rather than the societal level, which may have implications for third-person effects, particularly the behavioral component. Finally, a less dramatic form of social desirability was the focus of an experiment on how emotions and gender interacted in political campaign ads (Hitchon et al., 1997). The researchers defined social desirability with four semantic differential items, including the positive anchors of socially desirable, socially responsible, beneficial, and favorable to society. Negative political advertisements were perceived as more undesirable than neutral and positive ads, which indicates a degree of internal validity. Third-person perceptions emerged for positive and neutral conditions, but participants reported a greater negative influence on themselves than others for the so1 Eveland and McLeod (1999) argued that their findings did not support the self-enhancement motivation—but merely ego-defensive motivations—because the prosocial lyrics failed to produce a first-person perception, with a third-person perception occurring for the lyrics rejecting misogyny. The lyrics themselves, which the researchers described as “sympathetically [telling] the story of a woman who was verbally and physically sexually harassed by men on the street, and ridiculed men who refer to women as whores and sex objects” (p. 323), make it difficult to interpret whether it is accurate to discount self-enhancement entirely. It’s quite possible that the words such as “whores” (and probably worse) had a priming effect on the participants, tapping into attitudes toward women deeply ingrained in both male and female college students.

MESSAGE VARIABLES

35

cially undesirable negative ads (Hitchon et al.). The fact that participants viewed the clearly undesirable message in such a poor light suggests they thought they could see through the candidate’s potentially harmful intent, whereas others could not. On the other end of the spectrum, the social desirability of messages theoretically should result in a first-person perception, or at least a very marginal third-person perception. Duck, Terry, and Hogg (1995) studied participants’ responses to media messages about safer sex, finding that individuals who believed it was “good” to be influenced by the messages perceived firstperson effects, whereas those who had no opinion about message desirability saw little discrepancy between themselves and others. Again, researchers have tended to rely on face validity of socially desirable messages rather than actually testing their participants’ attitudes. What attributes do socially desirable messages possess, other than an apparent lack of perceived harm? White and Dillon (2000) argued that the goal of a socially desirable message should be universally considered positive. Finding a first-person perception for a public service announcement advocating organ donation, they concluded that “it is a socially desirable thing to be persuaded by a pro-social, altruistic public service announcement. And, self enhancement can be achieved by believing that ‘I’ am more likely to engage in this excellent advocated behavior than are other people” (p. 800). Jensen and Hurley (2005) chose “helpful” as their measure of social desirability in an experiment and found that participants who evaluated the news stories as helpful were significantly more likely to say that the stories influenced themselves than those who did not find the stories helpful. No third-person measures were reported in conjunction with social desirability, however. Whether the message is undesirable, offensive, or harmful, third-person perceptions do not automatically appear. Is the inconsistent relationship between message and perceptual discrepancy a matter of topic? Does it vary by audience? Or is it a methodological artifact? A closer examination of thirdperson effect studies by message type may help elucidate our understanding. THIRD-PERSON PERCEPTIONS FOR NEWS CONTENT

The news media are ubiquitous; in theory, we should be so inured to news coverage that we may not consider its possible effects on ourselves, barring a devastating event such as Hurricane Katrina’s 2005 destruction in the Gulf Coast and the days of vivid, tragic news stories that followed. Seldom should we consider any influence the news media have on others, unless we are provided evidence that their coverage seems to be affecting those others, such as the outpouring of private donations for victims of Hurricane Katrina (and the 2004 tsunami in the Indian Ocean).

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Television footage of destroyed neighborhoods and dead bodies is certainly troubling, but it provides us an eye to the world. Awareness of events around the world and of immediate import to us is one of the major reasons we consume news media (Rubin, 1983). Although individuals may attribute varying levels of trust and fairness to the news media, we can hardly argue that the news media’s content is undesirable or harmful per se. How do these conflicting feelings regarding news messages, then, affect third-person perceptions? For the most part, studies of third-person perceptions that have employed some form of news story as a stimulus have found perceptual discrepancies to be fairly minimal, although statistically significant. A range of news topics is summarized in Table 3.1. (Tables in this chapter display the ratio of influence on self to influence on others [labeled TPE]. For studies where means TABLE 3.1 Third-Person Perceptions For Controversial News Issues Message Topic

Study

Sample

TPE

President Clinton policy changes are “flip-flopping”

Price & Tewksbury (1996)

Students

.59

News coverage of Y2K problems

Salwen & Dupagne (2003)

Adults

.64

Presidential campaign news

Salwen (1998)

Adults

.71

Molestation charges against Michael Jackson

Price & Tewksbury (1996)

Students

.72

Pro-gun possession editorial

Douglas & Sutton (2004)

Students

.72

Internet pornography available to children

Price et al. (1997)

Students

.73

Police officer’s racism at Simpson trial

Price et al. (1997)

Students

.73

President Clinton Whitewater scandal

Price & Tewksbury (1996)

Students

.74

Televised trials influence public opinion

Salwen & Dupagne (1999)

Adults

.74

O.J. Simpson may not get fair trial due to news coverage

Price & Tewksbury (1996)

Students

.75

Rep. Gingrich’s book deal may influence lobbying

Price et al. (1997)

Students

.79

Unregulated dioxin in fertilizers

Jensen & Hurley (2005)

Students

1.00

Gray wolf off endangered species list Jensen & Hurley (2005)

Students

1.02

Note. Smaller numbers indicate greater third-person perception. Numbers greater than 1.00 indicate first-person perception.

MESSAGE VARIABLES

37

were available, the self mean was divided by the mean of others, thus smaller TPE scores indicate greater perceptual discrepancies. Where more than one self–others comparison was made in a study, we used the mean of the group with the least social distance from the study participants. Calculating the difference between self and socially closest other generally results in relatively low perceptual discrepancies. We discuss the importance of social distance in chap. 6.) Although few of the studies included in Table 3.1 asked participants to rate the messages in terms of social desirability, the relatively truncated range of perceptual discrepancies suggests that, by and large, news stories did not produce large third-person effects. Compared to more clearly noxious content, such as violent or misogynistic depictions (Table 3.3) and negative political advertising (Table 3.4), news stories seem to conform more closely to the as-yet-undefined socially desirable message, with the possible exception of coverage of President Clinton’s policy changes (Price & Tewksbury, 1996). Of the three news issues Price and Tewksbury used in that experiment, Clinton’s alleged flip-flopping resulted in much greater third-person effects than the other two; unfortunately, no information was provided about the sample to suggest an explanation. Importance

It is worth noting that the vast majority of third-person effect studies with news stimuli have used college student samples. College students, like others in their generational cohort, spend little time attending the news media (Mindich, 2005). Exposure to news content, as we discussed in chapter 2, is an important variable in determining the magnitude of third-person perceptions, such that those who consume more news are more likely to acknowledge its influence on their own attitudes and subsequently perceive less difference in effect between themselves and others than those who don’t keep up with the news. Although college students on the whole spend little time with news in general, certain topics may garner their attention. It is useful, therefore, to examine the specific issues in question for their perceived importance to study participants because news consumption ought to increase for salient coverage. Price and Tewksbury (1996) found that issue importance was positively related to both influence on self and perceived influence on others, thereby not altering the third-person perception. Conversely, topics that seem irrelevant to participants may not elicit increased influence (Jensen & Hurley, 2005). Issue importance is, of course, tied to involvement and interest and produces similar trends in the results; we discuss it separately because importance seems to be a message-based concept, whereas involvement and interest are traditionally person-centered notions. For instance,

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we might expect the hearings for a Supreme Court nominee to be important to Americans, considering that his or her decisions could affect the country for at least a decade. But in the case of Judge Samuel Alito, nominated to replace Justice Sandra Day O’Connor in 2005, only 14% of Americans were “very closely” following the Senate hearings with Alito (The Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, 2006, January 11). Meanwhile, 47% said they were very closely following the rescue attempt of 12 coal miners trapped in a West Virginia mine—a story that, while certainly compelling, would be of importance primarily for those associated with the mining industry and their families. Libelous or Harmful News Stories

One of the first practical applications of the third-person effect that researchers studied was the possible influence on jurors in libel cases (Cohen, Mutz, Price, & Gunther, 1988; Gunther, 1991). Jurors estimate the extent of harm defamation causes to an individual, then recommend a dollar amount in damages to compensate the individual for injury to his or her reputation. Clearly, determining the amount of harm to someone’s reputation involves consideration of how others will respond to a defamatory news story. Libelous stories require that false information was published, either with negligence or known falsity on the part of the publishers, so these kinds of news stories ought to fit in the “socially undesirable” message category. In examining the findings to date, however, we can see that libelous stories seem to fall into two categories. (See Table 3.2. With the exception of Lambe & McLeod [2005], studies in this table were experiments that manipulated sources. The TPE scores reported in Table 3.2 reflect the neutral source condition. We discuss the effects of sources in chap. 4.) Third-person perceptions tend to be greater when the individual harmed is a local figure (Cohen et al., 1988; Gunther, 1991), rather than someone further removed TABLE 3.2 Third-Person Perceptions for Libelous News Stories Message Topic

Study

Sample

TPE

Local police chief libeled in New York Times Gunther (1991)

Students

.66

University football coach libeled in unknown newspaper

Cohen et al. (1988)

Students

.73

State Supreme Court justice libeled in unknown newspaper

Cohen et al. (1988)

Students

.90

Adults

.93

Newspaper articles harming the reputation Lambe & McLeod of public figure (2005) Note. Smaller numbers indicate greater third-person perception.

MESSAGE VARIABLES

39

from the participants’ realm. This suggests that involvement may well moderate the participants’ responses. The more concerned they are about damage to a prominent person (and who is more prominent on a university campus than the football coach?) with whom they are familiar, the less likely they are to be influenced by a damning news story; it’s the other readers who may lose esteem for the local figure. Much like the findings regarding involvement, then, it appears that people who feel strongly about an issue will worry about how others might respond to (persuasive) messages. Violent, Hateful, or Misogynistic Content

The best and perhaps most frequently tested illustration of the third-person perception is media messages that contain inherently noxious material— advocacy of hatred or violence against others (often women) and pornography. The former generally comes in the form of television or film violence, although rap music has been studied as well. Interestingly, despite the wide range in levels of violence and degradation depicted in pornography, the word pornography alone seems to be an adequate heuristic to provoke thirdperson perceptions. Not surprisingly, these kinds of content regularly evoke sizeable third-person effects. Regardless of whether the mechanism underlying the phenomenon is self-enhancement theory, an ego-defensive mechanism, biased optimism, or something else, it is difficult to imagine a situation in which individuals would think that it’s smart to be influenced by such messages. If nothing else, the desirability artifact of wanting to appear socially acceptable (or to please the professor conducting the study) should account for a piece of the perceptual discrepancy in this category. Within the realm of violent or hateful content, portrayals of violence have produced the greatest third-person perceptions, in both adult and college-student samples (see Table 3.3). Hateful or violent content appears to generate the greatest third-person perceptions of any content among a variety of groups, including college students, U.S. adults, and Australian adults. Considering that violence in media has long been at the root of the public’s anxiety about media—from early films depicting crime in the 1920s to comic books in the 1950s (Lowery & DeFleur, 1988)—this is not particularly surprising. The rare copycat phenomenon, in which bizarre assaults or murders are reenacted from fictional portrayals in real life, and other anecdotal incidents occur just often enough to continue to stoke the embers of adherence to the media effects schema we discussed in chapter 2. One problematic aspect of attributing this discrepancy solely to the message, however, is Scharrer’s (2002) caution that fear of media provocations of violence may reflect stereotypes of racial or other groups rather than the crime depicted itself. Supporting Scharrer, we argue that the potential harm individuals attribute to these kinds of content cannot be the only factor influencing per-

40

CHAPTER 3 TABLE 3.3 Third-Person Perceptions for Violent or Misogynist Content

Message Topic

Study

Sample

TPE

Violence in media

Innes & Zeitz (1988)

Adults

.18

TV violence

Gunther & Hwa (1996)

Adults

.28

Misogynistic rap music

McLeod et al. (1997)

Students

.40

Violent or misgynistic music

Eveland et al. (1999)

Students

.58

Hate groups’ websites

Lambe & McLeod (2005)

Adults

.61

Violent rap music

McLeod et al. (1997)

Students

.62

Pornography

Lambe & McLeod (2005)

Adults

.62

TV violence

Salwen & Dupagne (1999)

Adults

.65

Pornography

Rojas et al. (1996)

Students

.72

TV violence

Rojas et al. (1996)

Students

.74

Pornography

Lo & Paddon (2000)

High school

.78

TV violence

Scharrer (2002)

Adults

.83

Pornography

Lee & Tamborini (2005)

Students

.85

Violence in movies

Lambe & McLeod (2005)

Adults

.88

Gangster rap music

Lambe & McLeod (2005)

Adults

.99

Note. Smaller numbers indicate greater third-person perception.

ceptions, as third-person effects among adults are not linearly related to the magnitude of the discrepancy (Lambe & McLeod, 2005). Beyond violent or hateful content, pornography stimulates fairly goodsized third-person perceptions in samples ranging from Asian high school students to American adults. The largest discrepancy for pornography occurred for the item phrasing “pornographic videos depicting women as sex objects” (Lambe & McLeod, 2005, p. 281); although the participants in that survey indicated that such content would strongly, negatively affect themselves, the researchers did not control for participant gender, which muddies the interpretation of the findings. We might expect that the emphasis on women in the item might prime differential responses by gender, but Rojas, Shah, and Faber’s (1996) study suggested otherwise. Lo and Paddon’s (2000) study on perceived influence of pornography on self and others among Taiwanese high school students may provide some insight into the high degree of third-person perceptions for this content, although obviously such a homogeneous sample has little external validity. Those teenagers perceived that pornography would have greater impact on others’ sexual at-

MESSAGE VARIABLES

41

titudes, sexual knowledge, sexual behavior, moral values, and attitudes toward the opposite sex—in other words, both attitudinal and (possibly) behavioral damages could accrue. In summary, findings to date for harmful messages suggest that a number of the mechanisms we discussed in chapter 2 as having some explanatory value for motivating third-person perceptions make sense. None emerge as particularly salient at this point, and none can be eliminated. Perceptual Discrepancies for Advertising

Considering the public’s seeming distrust of advertising (e.g., Gunther & Mundy, 1993; Gunther & Thorson, 1992), we might postulate that advertisements as a research topic would consistently stimulate robust third-person perceptions. After all, we recognize that advertising’s purpose is to persuade us, and our inclination is to either resist or to deny that those ads have any influence over our attitudes or behavior. It’s obvious that advertisements do affect others, however: they wear clothing with prominent designer labels and drink well-advertised soft drinks. Research suggests—in a recurring theme for this chapter—only partial support for the notion that persuasive messages should produce perceptual discrepancies larger than those of not-as-obviously persuasive content (Hoorens & Ruiter, 1996). Among advertising-related studies, negative political (or “attack”) ads have received a great deal of attention from scholars (see Table 3.4). Interestingly, the third-person perception ratios in surveys of adults have ranged from large, with others perceived to be affected about twice as much as self (Rucinski & Salmon, 1990), to insignificant, very slight effects (Lambe & McLeod, 2005). One can’t help but notice that the magnitude of third-person perceptions has decreased over time. Rucinski and Salmon collected their data in October 1988, when the controversial television commercial that described Massachusetts prisoner Willie Horton was salient. The ad, which attacked Democratic candidate Michael Dukakis as soft on crime, was sponsored by a political action committee supporting Vice President George Bush, and it is considered one of the most negative political ads in history (Schenck-Hamlin, Procter, & Rumsey, 2000). A decade later, it is likely that the public had become inured to similar—though perhaps not as vicious—attacks. Perhaps the very characteristic—advertisements’ persuasive intent— automatically constitutes undesirable content for some. Gunther and Thorson’s (1992) study on advertising versus public service announcements would seem to suggest that this is not the case, as their participants produced larger first-person perceptions for Qantas Airlines, Betty Crocker cake mix, and Gulf gasoline than for PSAs on Greenpeace, the United Negro College Fund, and drunken driving. But these comparisons, too, are mis-

42

CHAPTER 3 TABLE 3.4 Third-Person Perceptions for Advertising

Message Topic

Study

Sample

TPE

One party’s political campaign in Australia

Innes & Zeitz (1988)

Adults

.24

Negative political advertising

Rucinski & Salmon (1990)

Adults

.53

Lottery advertising

Youn et al. (2000)

Adults

.55

Political advertising

Rucinski & Salmon (1990)

Adults

.60

Advertising for casino gambling

Youn et al. (2000)

Adults

.60

Cigarette advertising

Borzekowski et al. (1999)

Adolescents

.61

Direct-to-consumer prescription drug ads

Huh et al. (2004)

Adults

.68

Negative political advertising

Salwen & Dupagne (1999)

Adults

.75

Political attack advertising

Paek et al. (2005)

Adults

.92

Positive political advertising

Hitchon et al. (1997)

Students

.94

Negative political advertising

Lambe & D. M. McLeod (2005)

Adults

.95

Neutral political advertising

Hitchon et al. (1997)

Students

.99

Political attack advertising

Paek et al. (2005)

Students

1.00

Negative political advertising

Hitchon et al. (1997)

Students

2.94

Note. Smaller numbers indicate greater third-person perception.

leading; participants answered items regarding whether their attitude toward the products advertised became more positive, whereas the items for PSAs focused on importance of the issue (see review in Hoorens & Ruiter, 1996). Aside from the purpose of the messages, Gunther and Thorson noted a trend in their results: “When it is socially desirable to consider oneself influenced by emotional messages, then people see themselves as quite yielding and, again, others as less so” (p. 592). All in all, then, the discussion of desirability for persuasive messages is limited by the lack of validation of the (researchers’) connotation of socially desirable content. On the whole, it’s likely that “the perceiver’s affective evaluation of the ad rather than the objective intent of the ad (e.g., product ads versus public service ads) is the more important determinant of the magnitude and direction” of third-person perceptions (Duck, Hogg, & Terry, 1998, p. 18). Chapin’s (1999) finding that minority at-risk youth reported large third-person perceptions—rather than the first-person effects we might expect—for public service announcements promoting safer sex seems to sup-

MESSAGE VARIABLES

43

port this explanation. Examining only the advertising studied in Table 3.4, which focuses on the negative, from political attack ads to cigarette ads, does not allow us to determine the extent to which persuasion alone influences evaluation of self and others. Product also matters (Banning, 2001a). Studies that focus on positive persuasion have found that it takes more than merely promoting a socially desirable message to produce first-person effects. Moreover, these studies help elucidate other qualities that contribute to desirable messages. Thus, message desirability or undesirability seems much like the old saw about obscenity: We know it when we see it. Given the wide range in the types of messages that have been tested with the third-person effect, and the somewhat inconsistent findings produced as a result, it is clear that we cannot rely on post hoc (or even a priori) assumptions about message desirability without confirming those among research subjects. Rather than reinvent the wheel, it may be useful to return to the body of knowledge regarding variables that increase—or at least influence the degree of—the likelihood of persuasion, which is relevant to how individuals interpret messages. THE BEHAVIORAL COMPONENT

Thus far, we have focused on the perceptual discrepancy aspect of the third-person effect. We now turn, briefly, to its behavioral component, considering that this aspect of the phenomenon tends to be tested in terms of its concordance with the message content in question. In the early 1990s, Perloff (1993b) observed that the behavioral component had not been substantiated; years later, he noted that “the behavioral hypothesis has been tested rigorously” (Perloff, 2002, p. 499) but without satisfactorily measuring behavior itself nor determining a causal direction for what scholars assumed to be an attitude favoring (usually) censorship, followed by a stated willingness to restrict certain content in the media. To be sure, the behavioral component remains the most elusive aspect of the thirdperson effect, despite Davison’s (1983) allusion to such an outcome in his original articulation. By far, the behavior studied to date has been that of whether individuals say they are willing to restrict or censor media content. The behavior is presumably based on a need to prevent others from exposure to content, generally because the content might harm others (McLeod, Detenber, & Eveland, 2001; Rojas et al., 1996; but see also Chia et al., 2004, who found that effect on a specific individual was more important than on generalized others). Individuals are motivated to say they would censor “something they recognize as ‘dangerous’ or ‘deviant’ for society, something they are clever or smart enough to recognize and counter” (Rojas et al., p. 182). Research has found the behavioral component confounding, varying by its relationship to the perceptual hypothesis, whether

44

CHAPTER 3

interest in regulating the media is due to effects on self or on others, and to the media content in question. Research measuring planned behaviors, such as taking precautions for a possible disaster, has similarly produced mixed results (Atwood, 1994; Tewksbury, Moy, & Weis, 2004). If we examine the third-person perceptual discrepancy alone, the behavioral component seems baffling. The magnitude of third-person perception strongly, positively influences the willingness to censor television content (Gunther & Hwa, 1996; Rojas et al., 1996), violent rap lyrics (McLeod, Eveland, & Nathanson, 1997), and pornography (Lee & Tamborini, 2005; Rojas et al., 1992; Wu & Koo, 2001), but has little relationship with willingness to regulate support of direct-to-consumer prescription drug advertising (Huh, DeLorme, & Reid, 2004), news coverage of sensational trials (Salwen & Driscoll, 1997), or news about terrorism (Haridakis & Rubin, 2005). Golan, Banning, and Lundy (2005) noted a connection between third-person perception and voting behavior. White (2001) found that third-person perception acted as a governor that provided limits on preexisting intended behavior rather than serving as the impetus for behavior that wouldn’t have occurred otherwise. If self–other discrepancies offer little insight into the behavioral component, separating the effects on self and other seems to add only a glimmer of understanding. Perceived effect on the self positively predicts support for restrictions, at least in the case of pornography (Chia et al. 2004; Gunther & Hwa, 1996; Lee & Tamborini, 2005; Lo & Paddon, 2000, 2001). These studies, however, occurred in Asian countries, mostly surveying people as young as high school students, who likely had little experience with pornography. Influence on self was positively related to behavioral response about environmental news, although the authors of that study noted the issues discussed were of low salience to their subjects (Jensen & Hurley, 2005). On the other hand, one study found estimations of effects on others was most predictive of willingness to restrict routine political news and advertising (Salwen, 1998), and another survey about advertising promoting gambling also found that effects on others was positively related to restriction (Youn, Faber, & Shah, 2000). Other studies have also found evaluations of self and other about equally important in predicting support for censorship (McLeod et al., 2001). A variety of individual traits have been found related to the behavioral component when operationalized as willingness to censor, depending on the media material in question. Several of these traits have been significantly related to support for media rights in studies outside the third-person effect (see review in Andsager, Wyatt, & Martin, 2004). In other words, a construct other than self–other comparison may underlie the behavioral component or contribute to it. Much like tolerance or support for expressive rights research that did not invoke the third-person effect, paternalism positively predicts willingness to censor (McLeod et al., 2001), as does conservatism (McLeod et al., 1997; Rojas et al., 1996), and distrust of source and per-

MESSAGE VARIABLES

45

ceived negative effects of message (Huh et al., 2004). Similarly, Chia et al. (2004) found that perceived harm accruing to a Taiwanese politician whose sex life was exposed in a video disc (and released by a magazine) was positively related to willingness to restrict distribution. Like tolerance research, education is negatively related to willingness to restrict media content (Salwen, 1998; Salwen & Driscoll, 1997), but other demographics are unrelated (Huh et al., 2004; Rojas et al., 1996). Asking subjects about negative effects or vague perceived harm may not fully capture the reasoning behind willingness to regulate content that may be offensive, degrading, or indecent. The finding that perceived indecency for self in one study was the tipping point in determining the behavioral component suggests that individuals may think “if I’m offended, this must be particularly undesirable content” (Andsager et al., 2005, p. 16). This does not mean, of course, that they fail to consider how others will respond. The Influence of Presumed Influence

The inconsistency among perceived effects on self, others, and the third-person perception has led some scholars to argue that estimations of influence on others are derived from speculation based on media messages, not actual knowledge or familiarity with the group (Gunther & Storey, 2003). Rather, “People perceive some influence of a communication on others (presumed influence) and, as a result, change their own attitudes or behaviors (influence of presumed influence)” (Gunther & Storey, p. 199). This “influence of presumed influence” suggests that lack of direct experience with a certain group—or, perhaps, a certain topic—results in guesswork about a message’s effect on others, making it difficult to determine whether it is the third-person discrepancy or effects on one element of the equation (self or others) that should be related to the behavioral component. The influence of presumed influence has recently begun to appear frequently in the literature along with the third-person effect (see, for example, Gentles & Harrison, 2006; Tsfati & Cohen, 2003; Tsfati, Ribak, & Cohen, 2005). Although research is only beginning to examine the influence of presumed influence, its advantage over the third-person effect is that it specifically focuses on behavior and the rationale underlying it. Second, it requires distinct analyses of perceived effects on self and others, rather than merely perceptual discrepancy scores. Whether the influence of presumed influence will complement or supplant the third-person effect—or, more likely, explain its behavioral component—remains to be seen. Other Behavioral Intentions

Beyond support for restrictions, other research on the behavioral component has produced some intriguing findings that strongly suggest the third-person

46

CHAPTER 3 TABLE 3.5 First-Person Perceptions for Positive Persuasive Messages

Message Topic

Study

Sample

TPE

Safe tanning ad

Gunther & Mundy (1993)

Students

.67

Public service announcements

Gunther & Thorson (1992)

Students

.91

Seatbelt safety ad

Gunther & Mundy (1993)

Students

1.05

Qantas Airlines (high emotion) Gunther & Thorson (1992)

Students

1.21

Safe tanning news article

Gunther & Mundy (1993)

Students

1.24

Organ donation PSA

White & Dillon (2000)

Students

1.27

Seatbelt safety (news article)

Gunther & Mundy (1993)

Students

1.28

Note. Smaller numbers indicate greater third-person perception; numbers greater than 1.00 reflect first-person effects.

effect does influence individuals’ behavior, although not necessarily at a societal level. For example, Israeli parents who believed that their own children were not affected by a specific television program depicting rebellious behavior—drinking, smoking, swearing, being sexually active, and the like—did not worry about limiting their children’s viewing of the program (Tsfati et al., 2005). The parents who perceived other people’s children were influenced, however, attempted to limit the amount of time their own children spent with those kids, who might be a bad influence. This study underscores the importance of peer communication as a moderating variable in presumed media influence, suggesting again that media effects schema does not entirely explain why third-person perceptions occur. The Israeli findings conflict with those of Hoffner and Buchanan (2002), who found that a small sample of American parents were more likely to say that they would support censorship and mediate their children’s viewing of violent programming. Whether this is a cross-cultural artifact or a matter of specifying violence (rather than the general antisocial behavior that Tsfati et al. [2005] asked about), the U.S. parents also expected that other children would be more affected than their own by viewing aggression. It is possible that the findings in these two studies of parents tap into the self-enhancement motivation, which may lead to other outcomes than thirdperson effects. Motivation for the Behavioral Component

Aside from the problem of determining whether the attitudes toward censorship and other actions measured by the behavioral component will trans-

47

MESSAGE VARIABLES

late into actual behavior, it is fairly obvious that researchers have little clue as to why it appears so frequently in our studies. An important yet neglected aspect of the behavioral component is “beliefs such as the efficacy of remedial actions and one’s ability to perform them” (Neuwirth & Frederick, 2002, p. 134). Efficacy is an important variable in the success of persuasion attempts, such that persuasive campaigns that provide incentive to change attitudes but not a means of altering behavior almost inevitably fail (Atkin, 2001). And if media messages intend to generate a behavior such as advocating censorship, how do the third-person effect and its behavioral component differ from our traditional conceptualizations of persuasion? Perhaps Lo and Paddon (2000) summarized the conundrums regarding our relative lack of understanding of the behavioral component best when they asked, in reference to censorship of pornography: Do [individuals] fear becoming the victims of violent or criminal sex? Do they fear loss of self-control? Do they perceive societal harm from criminal elements involved in the production and distribution of erotic materials? Are they concerned for the well-being of those who pose and model for pornographic producers? (p. 87) SUMMARY

Mediated messages either affect an individual’s perceptions of their effects on him- or herself, on others, or in some combination influencing the magnitude of perceptual discrepancies. Although socially undesirable messages are expected to produce third-person effects, whereas socially desirable ones generate first-person effects, the evidence does not wholly support this assumption. One reason for this apparent inconsistency is the muddy definition of undesirability. For example, “While a content type may be judged as having a great influence, this perceived influence does not automatically imply a ‘harmful’ effect” (Rucinski & Salmon, 1990, p. 363). Which does the individual consider—the content or the subsequent effect? This chapter has focused on message content itself, but of course messages usually come from specific sources. Chapter 4 examines the extent to which sources seem to influence third-person effects.

4 Source and Channel Variables

Media consumers seem inherently inclined to attribute bias to the news media, regardless of whether it exists. During presidential campaigns, for example, Republicans invariably perceive the news media to possess a liberal bias, whereas Democrats reading the same newspapers tend to say that the coverage is much more favorable to the Republican candidate. This phenomenon is well known as selective perception. Davison (1983) noted the role of our tendency to believe the media are biased against our side of an issue or campaign, explaining that a “balanced media presentation would require a sharp tilt toward the ‘correct’ side of the issue,” which might allow us to presume that even “the intellectual frailty of third persons” could manage to develop the right cognitions about the issue (p. 11). Clearly, selective perception plays a large part in individuals’ estimates of third-person perceptions in the news content studies we have previously discussed. Partisans such as the Jewish and Palestinian participants in Perloff’s (1989) experiment on perceptions of the influence of news media bias reacted in similar patterns as had Democrats and Republicans who watched political advertisements attacking their 1988 presidential candidates (Cohen & Davis, 1991). Ego-involvement, therefore, appears to sensitize individuals to nuances in the information or the presentation. One critical review of negative political advertising research, for example, concluded that “virtually any unfavorable mention of one’s opponent appears to trigger charges of negativity—regardless of the specific credibility of that mention” (Richardson, 2001, p. 796). Such a phenomenon would outweigh the whole of the message itself, and the source is likely to be evaluated (if any evaluation actually occurs) rather than the specific information he or she cited. To be sure, the public often selects sources known to bolster their 48

SOURCE AND CHANNEL VARIABLES

49

opinions rather than those who challenge them, as sources promoting partisan viewpoints seldom include information that challenges those views (Mutz & Martin, 2001). But what characteristics of sources help us to determine which sources would perform such a function? Clues abound in the persuasion literature. Credibility, similarity, and attractiveness are among the consistent traits individual sources must possess if they are to be particularly persuasive (Perloff, 1993a). Credibility is a component of individual news media outlets as well (Gaziano & McGrath, 1986; Kiousis, 2001), although it’s not necessarily linked to frequency of use (Rimmer & Weaver, 1987).1 The problem is that, much like messages themselves, source evaluations are dependent on the receiver. The person who finds FOX’s Bill O’Reilly a credible or trustworthy source is unlikely to perceive CNN anchor Anderson Cooper the same way, and vice versa. Furthermore, the salience of the source may not be consistent, depending on the message content. Do audiences even notice sources? A recent experiment found support for the contention that sources are indeed salient to audiences in at least two ways. First, reporter bylines are noticed—a news story attributed to “journalist” was significantly more likely than the identical article attributed to “student” to provoke oppositional estimations of bias among partisans (Gunther & Liebhart, 2005). Second, the size of the audience the story reached (USA Today versus a college class) was also positively related to perceived bias against each partisan’s side of the issue (Gunther & Liebhart). Thus, much like social desirability (or undesirability) of a message, our estimations of message sources warrant attention, as do factors affecting self and others’ connotations of those sources. Before turning to sources, however, it is worth noting that perceived news bias provokes the same fears about influence on one’s opponents as political attack ads, which could not be more overt. This provides perhaps the strongest support yet for the downward comparison aspect of the self-enhancement motivation underlying third-person perceptions. It suggests that we believe we can detect bias, whereas our opponents cannot. In both cases, moreover, these findings suggest that we perceive ourselves to be comprehending the information accurately, but we automatically assume others cannot do the same, perhaps due to their lower levels of processing capability or their lack of willingness to consider the content. This suggests that, by comparison, we consider ourselves to be processing the information systematically because we know we have correctly analyzed the message. Beyond the message itself, however, lies the influence—if any—of the source of that message. A source might be a person quoted in a news story, 1 Exposure to content, as discussed in chapter 2, is generally positively related to influence on self and on magnitude of third-person perceptions.

50

CHAPTER 4

the journalist or columnist writing the piece, or the newspaper itself. In this chapter, we also discuss the channel component of Lasswell’s (1948) classic model of communication. Although a particular medium—print, television, Internet, radio, and so on—is not a source per se, a number of studies have examined multiple channels providing similar content. Within those channels, different venues may be perceived as sources. FOX News and CNN, for example, differ significantly in terms of number of perspectives and journalistic opinion presented (Journalism.org, 2005), although both are 24-hour cable TV news channels. The third-person effect studies we analyzed did not specify networks when they included television as a site of news bias or violent content, so it is impossible to know which specific programs or networks came to participants’ minds as they responded to items in the study. A few studies have specified publications because the source of an article was manipulated as part of stimuli, and we now turn to source manipulation variables. CREDIBILITY

Credibility is one of the oldest constructs in mediated communication research, dating back to Hovland’s work in the 1950s (Hovland & Weiss, 1951). Credibility, in media-related research, is generally considered to consist of 12 facets, defined by the classic Gaziano and McGrath (1986) study of newspaper credibility: accuracy, bias, concern for community well-being, concern for public interest, factuality, fairness, reporter training level, respect of privacy, separation of fact and opinion, telling the whole story, trustworthiness, and watching after the public interest. Subsequent research has generally incorporated various permutations of these credibility variables. Perloff (2003) summarized the dimensions of credibility as expertise, trustworthiness, and goodwill, all of which are positively related to perceived credibility. Individuals may ascribe credibility either to a single spokesperson or journalist, or to a specific publication or network. In studies related to the thirdperson effect, analysis of credibility has tended to focus on the latter. The research has often manipulated the publication title (e.g., Wall Street Journal vs. People Magazine) rather than the byline or spokesperson associated with the message. A related experiment that attributed sensational, innocuous, and ambiguous news stories to reputable (The New York Times), disreputable (The Star), and ambiguous (a fictitious newspaper) sources found that the participants’ evaluations of the news stories was based on the stories, not on the newspapers in which they had allegedly appeared (Austin & Dong, 1994). Austin and Dong did not measure participants’ evaluations of the stories’ influence on others, but their findings are worth remembering as we review third-person effect literature.

51

SOURCE AND CHANNEL VARIABLES

On the other hand, it appears that sometimes the publication itself is an adequate heuristic for invoking judgments of influence on self and other. Participants in one experiment were told the libelous article they read had appeared in the National Enquirer, an infamous gossip tabloid, whereas their counterparts in another condition believed the same story had appeared in The New York Times (Gunther, 1991). Those who attributed the story to the Enquirer expected far greater perceptual discrepancies between themselves and the other students at their university, whom they perceived to be much more influenced by the tabloid. Third-person perceptions were slight but significant for those who thought the article came from The New York Times, an elite newspaper 2 (see Table 4.1). Importantly, Gunther found the participants barely reported themselves influenced by the National Enquirer story, but their cohort indicated that they had been strongly affected by the same article in the Times. These were students in an introductory communication course for whom credibility differences between the publications were likely salient. Gunther’s study, therefore, strongly suggests that something as simple as publication title can be a sufficient indicator of credibility. Why would the findings between the Gunther (1991) and Austin and Dong (1994) studies seem to diverge? The former examined only one story, involving allegations of truth-stretching against a local sheriff, who was probably known to some, with clear distinctions between two famous (or inTABLE 4.1 Third-Person Perceptions by Source Source

Study

TPE

Libel in National Enquirer

Gunther (1991)

.14

Libel from negatively biased paper (justice)

Cohen et al. (1988)*

.26

Libel from positively biased paper (justice)

Cohen et al. (1988)

.63

Libel in The New York Times

Gunther (1991)

.66

Libel from unnamed newspaper (justice)

Cohen et al. (1988)

.90

Neutral newspaper article (justice)

Cohen et al. (1988)

3.92

Note. Smaller numbers indicate greater third-person perceptions. Numbers greater than 1.00 indicate first-person perceptions. *Cohen et al. used two news stories, one on a State Supreme Court Justice and the other on Stanford University’s football coach. Both produced roughly the same patterns in findings, but we should note that the effects were slightly greater in the justice story than the coach story.

2 As in chapter 3, participants’ ratings of influence on themselves were divided by their estimations of influence on others to create a ratio of perception, such that the ratio displayed in the TPE column of Tables 4.1 and 4.2 is inversely related to the third-person perception.

52

CHAPTER 4 TABLE 4.2 Third-Person Perceptions by Medium

Medium

Study

Topic

TPE

Television

Brosius & Engel (1996)

Commercials

.63

Television

Salwen (1998)

Political campaign news

.69

Newspapers

Salwen (1998)

Political campaign news

.69

Radio

Salwen (1998)

Political campaign news

.71

Radio

Brosius & Engel (1996)

Music programs

.75

Television

Brosius & Engel (1996)

News

.92

Note. Smaller numbers indicate greater third-person perceptions.

famous, in the case of the National Enquirer3) papers. The latter study compared topics such as UFOs and politically based stories, which college students ought to be able to logically estimate in terms of credibility, leaving aside publications to which they were attributed. Thus, when a story was reasonable per se—the sheriff in Gunther’s stimuli—participants used the reputationally divergent publications as heuristics; when stories were vastly different in terms of believability but attributed to the staid New York Times, the flamboyant The Star, or a fictitious Southeastern newspaper about which Northwestern college students had no clue, the story topics themselves served as the basis of credibility assignment. This seems to support the basic foundations of attribution theory, that even small cues can provoke individuals to evaluate their behaviors and those of others in entirely distinct ways—with the significant difference being the separate processing strategies. Indeed, as Gunther quoted one of his participants: “‘Many people believe everything they read. They take it at face value without considering the source’” (p. 369). The student’s comment embodies the fundamental attribution error, as well as the central role that credibility appears to play in triggering heuristic or systematic processing. Further but less dramatic evidence emerged from an earlier study on the “real-world” effects of libel on potential jurors (as envisioned by college student participants). When the newspaper was perceived as biased against a public figure, the “jurors” evinced a larger third-person perception than when the same defamatory article appeared in a newspaper they believed to be biased in favor of that public figure, and the differential was even greater for a publication presumably biased against the individual (Cohen, Mutz, 3 It is possible that even students in introductory communication courses in 1988 would have associated the National Enquirer with comedian Carol Burnett’s successful libel case against the tabloid (Burnett v. National Enquirer, Inc., 1983).

SOURCE AND CHANNEL VARIABLES

53

Price, & Gunther, 1988). Mason (1995) found similar patterns with a more heterogeneous set of nonstudent participants, who perceived that publication of a defamatory statement was more harmful to others than interpersonal transmission. Individual Sources

Sources included in news stories can be individuals who are quoted or the reporter or columnist whose byline is attached to the story, as well as the publication itself. Research has indicated that credibility of a source cited in a story appears to be positively related to first-person perceptions, although it does not seem to have a deleterious effect on third-person perceptions (Andsager & White, 2001). Furthermore, source credibility itself is predictive of message effectiveness and may therefore increase message desirability (Andsager & White, 2004). Salwen (1992) found that the goodwill of a source is closely tied to that source’s credibility, which suggests that it should be smarter to be influenced by a source advocating one’s own best interest, in the parlance of third-person perceptions. Thus, credibility of either a specific person quoted, a journalist, or the publication should figure in judgments of social desirability of messages and subsequent self–other estimations. Message receivers use a number of source characteristics to evaluate that source’s expertise. A White male source better fits the expectations of an audience, and thus possesses inherent credibility because society is conditioned to elite White male sources of information and opinion from the realms of politics and media (Domke, Lagos, LaPointe, Meade, & Xenos, 1999). More often, the most readily apparent source characteristic is his or her gender, as determined by a first name, a pronoun, byline, or appearance in visual messages. Studies since 1980 (well after the second wave of the feminist movement in the United States) have generally found that source gender, by itself, is not a major factor in determining credibility (Andsager, 1990; Andsager & Mastin, 2003; Burkhart & Sigelman, 1990; White & Andsager, 1991). Race or ethnicity may be a cue (Domke et al.) or it may not (Andsager & Mastin). Despite the plethora of studies on negative political advertising reviewed in chapter 3, little attention has been paid to the candidates or other sources within those ads. Party affiliation is the main source variable considered. To our knowledge, only one published study has examined candidate gender in conjunction with third-person effects. Hitchon, Chang, and Harris (1997) found that, surprisingly, participants considered female candidates to have significantly more influence than male candidates in political ads they used as stimuli. We say this is surprising because in so much of the previous research, gender was seldom related to credibility (of course, Hitchon and her

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colleagues weren’t studying credibility per se). More interesting, in terms of third-person perceptions, is the fact that candidate gender made a much greater difference in perceived influence for self than it did for estimations of influence on socially distant others. Although self perceived others more influenced for male and female candidates, the gap between self and others narrowed in the female candidate condition. It’s quite possible this is an artifact of social desirability or the ceiling effect, but the within-self differential also points to a need to study more than gender in examining sources in third-person perception research. Job titles, advanced degrees, and organizational affiliations may serve as heuristics in determining expertise (Salwen, 1992; Shoemaker & Reese, 1996). For instance, a scientist quoted in a newspaper article may be almost automatically accorded expertise regarding stem cell research, but a person on the street would not. Organizational affiliations may suggest potential reporting biases, which occur on the part of the source, not the newspaper (Perloff, 1993a). A proponent of stem cell research might ignore the views expressed by a Vatican spokesperson interviewed in the same article on stem cell research because they were perceived as one-sided. One experiment, however, suggested that source titles are not as predictable as we might think. College student participants read an article on having a successful, happy life, with all the direct quotations cited attributed to one source, either a fictitious psychologist (“Dr. Richard Chatsworth, a leading expert in psychology”) or the movie star Matt Damon (White & Andsager, 2005). Participants rated the influence of both sources as larger on others their age than on self. Unexpectedly, though, they considered the actor more influential than the psychology expert—slightly more for self, but significantly more for others. This suggests perhaps two forces at work. First, perceived physical attractiveness may have raised Damon’s standing among some participants. Second, the finding that the participants expected Damon would have greater effects on others supports the attribution theory notion that others use different, less intelligent criteria than self to evaluate sources. Either way, it seems the participants engaged in systematic processing in their own evaluation of the sources. Individuals generally use heuristic cues to determine the level of credibility of a source, then systematically process the message if the source meets their satisfaction (Chaiken & Maheswaran, 1994). Then again, a wealthy movie star may hold immense credibility for some when it comes to the topic of a successful life. OTHER TRAITS OF PERSUASIVE SOURCES

When it comes to persuasive messages, credibility still factors in third- or first-person estimations, but (a) variables other than mere publication titles or topics matter, and (b) manipulated “outcomes” of persuasion have pro-

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duced intriguing findings. First, for an obviously desirable behavior of organ donation, participants rated the spokesperson significantly more influential for self than others; production qualities didn’t matter (White & Dillon, 2000). More specifically, message quality evaluation has been positively related to credibility judgments for expert sources, but not those considered biased, suggesting that quality is a heuristic for evaluating expertise (Slater & Rouner, 1996). These two experiments seem to reflect the findings related to sources versus topics—when a message appeals to nearly everyone, its quality is not an issue, but when the message or source is not as clear-cut, audience members resort to other, more subtle heuristics such as the writing quality or production expense. We argue that evaluating messages to the latter extent suggests an element of systematic processing. Again, the theme that emerges is that of heuristic versus systematic processing. Scholars have also turned the notion of heuristic processing on its ear, alleviating the need for such processing by the audience. For participants told a public service announcement had successfully persuaded others, their means were significantly higher in evaluating spokesperson influence (source) and production qualities’ influence (channel) than in the experimental group told that the PSA was unsuccessful (White & Dillon, 2000). Similarly, credible information on the alleged effects of persuasive messages on others, which reduces the desire to “guesstimate” how those others will respond, seemed to reduce the amount of influence participants perceived overall but had little effect on the size of the perceptual discrepancy (Paek, Pan, Sun, Abisaid, & Houden, 2005). These two studies substantiate the notion that credibility and evidence of actual effect can substitute for each other in estimating effects on others. Such an underlying equation indicates the extent to which individuals are willing to reach (or what they are willing to omit) when they are asked to think about those others in the audience that content may be reaching. MEDIUM

Diverse media invoke varying levels of involvement among audience members, and they are inherently different in terms of pervasiveness. The average adult spends more than 4 hours per day watching television (Media InfoCenter, 2005a) and 2.5 to 3 hours per day listening to the radio (Media InfoCenter, 2005b). At least 68.4% of U.S. households have Internet access (Media InfoCenter, 2006b). In contrast, only slightly more than half of American adults read a newspaper daily in 2005 (Media InfoCenter, 2006a). Studies also indicate that audiences attribute differing levels of credibility to the various media, with newspapers often the most credible (Kiousis, 2001), although perceived credibility depends on intended use (Rimmer & Weaver, 1987). These statistics might suggest that we approach and evalu-

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ate media differently, which should subsequently influence our expectations of effects on self and others. Nonetheless, a meta-analysis of third-person effect studies conducted through 1998 found no differences among media on the magnitude of perceptual discrepancies (Paul, Salwen, & Dupagne, 2000). Perhaps this is because virtually no one is exposed to only one medium; rather, we often get news about a specific event from the Internet, the newspaper, television, and radio. It’s difficult to determine where the influence of one channel ends and another begins. Still, the few studies that have included medium as a factor in third-person perceptions are worth noting. Atwood’s (1994) surveys of Missouri residents living near the New Madrid fault examined the participants’ first- and third-person perceptions regarding an earthquake prediction. It should be noted that about two thirds of participants expected the same effects on self and others. What’s important about the study is its analysis of those perceptions by medium—television, newspaper, and radio. Atwood found that television was most likely to produce first-person effects in news coverage of the prediction, perhaps because viewers could see the earthquake prediction equipment in action and listen to the scientists’ explanations. Conversely, radio news was slightly more likely to result in third-person perceptions. When he delved deeper into traits attributed to news coverage, Atwood found credibility of newspaper stories to be negatively related to third-person perceptions, as we should expect, based on the notion that individuals will be more likely to admit influence on themselves for a credible source. A perceived decline in TV news’ credibility on prediction coverage over time decreased initial first-person perceptions, and credibility was unrelated to radio news. Moreover, the analysis indicated clear distinctions among the media in other ways, not surprisingly, leading Atwood (1994) to conclude that, “although television and radio provide high drama about threats to one’s security, print media motivate behavior” (p. 278). (In the study, a question about earthquake preparations served as a behavioral component, but it was weakly related to newspapers.) This difference in involvement is likely related to systematic processing, as newspapers require higher levels of cognitive activity on the part of the audience (Singer, 1980). As Salwen (1998) noted, “Reading the newspaper—a medium associated with public affairs news—provides people with the confidence to evaluate themselves as smarter than other people” (p. 276; see also Rucinski & Salmon, 1990). Subsequent research on a more mundane topic—news about the 1996 presidential election—found, contrary to Atwood (1994), that radio was slightly less likely than television and newspapers, respectively, to produce third-person perceptions (Salwen, 1998). Radio produced quite similar third-person perceptions, regardless of whether content was an innocuous music program (Brosius & Engel, 1996) or presidential campaign news

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(Salwen). Moderate exposure to radio resulted in small differences between self and other, but radio resulted in larger self–other perceptual discrepancies for individuals who listened either a little or a lot (Innes & Zeitz, 1988). Compare these findings to the negative relationship between exposure to news content and magnitude of third-person perceptions discussed in chapter 2. Although it must be noted that the four studies on radio were conducted in three countries (the United States, Germany, and Australia) that may vary in radio format, the inconsistency of results suggests that radio, at best, may interact with a message to influence third-person perceptions. Brosius and Engel’s (1996) survey of German adults offers an interesting comparison to Salwen’s (1998) survey of U.S. adults, which found that television produced greater perceptual discrepancies than newspapers and radio. In the Brosius and Engel study, TV news evinced minimal third-person perceptions, but TV commercials had much higher discrepancies, and political campaign news was much closer to the commercials. Television’s heavy viewers in an Australian study produced only slight self–other differences, with a monotonic, negative relationship between viewing hours and third-person perceptions (Innes & Zeitz, 1988). Much like radio, then, the amount of television exposure—more than the attributes of the medium itself, apparently—affects our estimates of influence on self and others. It seems that it is necessary to specify exposure to a certain type of message content for third-person perceptions to consistently occur. In terms of channel alone, it is instructive to examine the work of Chia, Lu, and McLeod (2004). A sexually explicit video, shot by hidden cameras without the knowledge of the politician whose life it involved, was released on video disc by a magazine. Chia et al.’s survey asked participants whether they would support the Taiwanese government’s right to restrict the video in three media—the magazine, the Internet, and “any trade”4 (p. 122). Although mean levels of willingness to regulate were not reported, reasons to support regulation were differentially related to the various channels, with perceived antisocial nature and harm to the politician herself positively related to government seizure of the magazine’s discs and any trade, whereas these variables weren’t related to the Internet. Conversely, preventing the Internet display of the sex tape was strongly, positively predicted by perceived effect on self, whereas the magazine’s disc was not. Availability or accessibility, then, seems to be a factor in individuals’ perceptions of influence; the fact that Chia et al.’s (2004) participants thought they would be more willing to censor a channel that rendered the video widely available (and perhaps free for viewing) if they expected the video would affect themselves suggests that they might be more tempted to view it. The 4 The wording of the three behavioral component measures was “confiscation of all stock discs possessed by the magazine, prohibition on any trade of the disc, and prohibition on installing the disc content on personal Web pages” (Chia et al., 2004, p. 119).

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temptation might be more irresistible if there were no evidence lying around, such as a video disc or the magazine, that they had watched something they perceived as dirty. Finally, Asian and European participants asked about U.S. media exposure’s effect on their own cultural values answered differently depending on their exposure to various media (Willnat, He, Takeshita, & López-Escobar, 2002). Only those who read U.S. magazines believed the media influenced themselves, whereas individuals who listened to American music and radio anticipated greater effects on others. Interestingly, the international participants who consumed more U.S. media, particularly movies and magazines, perceived smaller third-person effects on cultural values, mostly because influence on others was expected to be low. (Willnat et al. found similar results for effects of violence in U.S. media—the greater the exposure, the less the perceptual discrepancy.) The study defined others as other people in the participant’s own country. Because the participants were college students, it is very likely that they assumed others in their country to be older than themselves. If so, exposure to U.S. music would presumably be lower for those others, with results quite similar to those of Lambe and McLeod (2005), who found estimated exposure more important than content desirability in predicting third-person perceptions. Medium and Processing

Certainly, studies on the third-person effect have produced little insight into how the channel of a message affects its perceived influence on self and others. Turning briefly to another complex area of study sheds light on why the findings may be so seemingly contradictory. A large body of research exists on the role that the unique attributes of various media play in information processing, particularly in the area of political communication (see review in Graber, 2001). Although conventional wisdom places print media at the top of the cognitive-processing continuum (Kosicki & McLeod, 1990; Singer, 1980), some evidence suggests television offers its own processing challenges: “Given the brief, rapid, and fragmentary nature of television news coverage, viewers must devote greater mental activities in order to put the episodic pieces of information together into a meaningful whole” (Guo & Moy, 1998, p. 40). The same might be said for radio news or even talk radio. In other words, an argument can be made that each medium includes features that require systematic processing if we are to glean information from it, but each allows for heuristic processing as well. These inconsistencies may be a primary reason why channel research on the third-person effect has not satisfactorily explained or predicted direction or magnitude of perceptual discrepancies. Rather than measuring the medium, we should record individuals’ levels of exposure to content and tap

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into the extent of their cognitive processing to determine how they will estimate a message’s influence. SUMMARY

Research on source variables provides some, but not much, information on how third-person perceptions function. Credibility’s frequent, positive relationship to influence on self supports the self-enhancement motivation, as do the findings that individuals attend to cues such as whether a news story came from a reputable outlet or a scandal sheet in estimating whether others will be affected. Moreover, both trends suggest a degree of information processing that individuals seem to think may be higher in themselves than in others. (We should note, however, that the relationships are sometimes tempered by receiver characteristics.) Extrapolating from message variables, if personal expertise and ego-involvement are indicative of systematic processing in producing influence on self, it is not surprising that perceived credibility is correlated with degree of self-influence. After all, who better to judge the expertise of a source than a person with plenty of his or her own expertise on the topic? Although channel variables have not produced conclusive results, the studies reviewed in this chapter suggest that something about the attributes of the channels has some sway over individuals’ estimations of influence. Considering that third-person effect research we have discussed up to this point seems to point toward issues of self-enhancement, ego-involvement, and, in turn, the effort put into information processing, we see numerous similarities between the third-person effect literature and another branch of communication research—persuasion.

5 The First-Person Effect as Persuasion

If individuals have a tendency to ascribe the influence of negative media content onto other people rather than self, a naturally occurring corollary to this basic hypothesis is its antithesis, that we have a tendency to ascribe the influence of positive media content onto self more than others. This latter notion, again, is the first-person effect. After all, if a positive self-image can be preserved by believing that other people are susceptible to the influence of weak argumentation, negative media formats, and undesirable messages, then a positive self-image should also be maintained by believing self is more influenced by the exact opposite. Thus, first-person perceptions have been found for messages society usually considers positive, such as encouraging traffic safety and crime prevention (Hoorens & Ruiter, 1996) or discouraging smoking (Chock & Lee, 2005). Although we have touched on the first-person effect previously, it is now important to further explicate the concept. Scholars tend to agree that the first-person effect is a consequence of the assertion that a desire for self-enhancement (Alicke et al., 1995; Brown, 1986) explains third-person perception (Duck & Mullin, 1995; Duck, Terry, & Hogg, 1995; Gunther & Thorson, 1992; Hoorens & Ruiter, 1996). Self-enhancement motivations require social comparison to operate. According to Alicke et al. (1995): Social comparisons entail three fundamental elements: a motivation for selfevaluation or self-protection, a target with whom comparisons are made, and the particular dimension being compared (e.g., behavior, trait attitude). … The motivation reflected in the comparison is self-enhancement, which is 60

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achieved by viewing one’s traits and prospects more favorably than those of others. (p. 804)

The perceived traits discussed in chapter 2 that affect perceptual discrepancies—the belief that self has a higher level of knowledge than others, for example—indicate that the self–other comparisons inherent in the thirdperson effect lend themselves quite well to this notion of a “better than average effect” (Alicke et al., p. 804). SELF–OTHER COMPARISONS AND MESSAGES

It’s easier to make self-enhancing decisions when there is a group (even loosely defined as such) to whom we already feel superior. In third-person effect studies, those groups have often been categorized as out-groups—individuals who do not share our beliefs, or worse, oppose them. Out-groups are more specific others than the wide variety of labels representing the concept of social distance (see chap. 6). Political parties provide instant, clearly delineated out-groups. In their study about negative ads in the 1988 presidential election, Cohen and Davis (1991) found a “differential impact” of the messages (p. 682). “Those who were supportive and therefore accepting of a political campaign message (a message attacking their candidate’s opponent) believed that they were affected while others who supported the attacked candidate were not. Those who were unsupportive and therefore rejected the same message (attacking their candidate) said they were not affected but that their fellow supporters would be” (p. 687). More than the simple univariate findings we reviewed in chapter 3, then, Cohen and Davis’s results were the product of an interaction between two variables, the candidate a participant supported and ingroup/out-group status of the others. About a decade later, in a study of political ads from the 2000 presidential campaign, Meirick (2004) flipped the direction of the Cohen and Davis (1991) experiment. His focus was information received from in-group and out-group candidates.1 Meirick found a first-person perception for messages received from in-group candidates, but only when self was compared with members of the political out-group. When self was compared with political in-group members, a third-person perception was found. Self-categorization, rather than a desire for self-enhancement, explained the first-person perceptions Reid and Hogg (2005) found in their experiments: “Self-categorization theory was designed to explain when particular identities become psychologically salient as the basis for social perception 1

An in-group candidate was defined as either Al Gore for voters who identified themselves as Democrats intending to vote for Gore or as George W. Bush for voters who identified themselves as Republicans intending to vote for Bush. An out-group candidate was defined by reversing these relationships.

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and behavior” (p. 131). As Reid and Hogg explained, people tend to use social categories, which are represented by prototypes, to help make sense of their environment. They defined prototype as “a fuzzy set of attributes that defines a category by simultaneously maximizing intra-category similarities and inter-category differences” (pp. 131–132). In self-categorization theory, these prototypes are concepts that change as one’s context changes. Reid and Hogg used the example of a college student’s comparing herself first with investment bankers and then with high school students. Compared with the former, a college student might self-define as young and immature. Compared with the latter, though, the same college student might consider herself older and sophisticated. Thus, part of the fluid nature of these prototypes in a media environment is the “normative fit” (p. 131) between a social category and the content of a media vehicle. In a series of studies, Reid and Hogg (2005) found that when participants perceived themselves to be prototypical members of a group that was also perceived to be a strong normative fit with a form of media content, a first-person perception emerged. When no such self-perception coupled with the group’s perceived strong normative fit, no first-person perceptions occurred. In other words, in addition to the self-enhancement motivation inherent in our psychological makeup, “media are self-enhancing to the extent that being influenced by that media is normative for a group with which one identifies. Of course, this means that even negative media can be self-enhancing if they define group membership” (Reid & Hogg, p. 156). Culture

Cultural norms and values form the basis of a more deeply felt case of in- and out-groups. Cho and Han (2004) examined the impact of cultural differences on self–other perceptions, arguing that a desire for self-enhancement is not as strongly felt in collectivistic cultures (South Korea) as it is in individualistic cultures (United States). Individuals in collectivistic cultures, they reasoned, are more closely linked with other people. Cho and Han (2004) found differences in how televised beer advertising, print (magazine) liquor advertising, television news about smoking, and television news about AIDS were perceived to influence self and others based on the participants’ cultural background. In particular, the first-person perception of positive media content (news reports about smoking and AIDS) was greater among the U.S. sample than it was among the South Korean sample. “Members of an individualistic culture construe themselves as an autonomous agent distinct from surrounding physical and social environments .… In contrast, in East Asian countries, which are considered as collectivistic cultures, individuals tend to not differentiate between self and other .… Since self has meaning only when it is connected with others, in-

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ternalizing social beliefs is essential to the survival of a life in a collectivistic culture” (Cho & Han, p. 304).2 These findings led Cho and Han to conclude that it is self-enhancement that accounts for first-person perceptions when they are found to exist. ARGUMENT QUALITY

In persuasion, the construction of a message figures prominently in its success or failure. Self-enhancement appears to interact with argument quality in producing perceptual discrepancies. For persuasive messages, the quality of argument presented—strong or weak, so identified by participants in a pretest—made a difference in evaluations, with strong arguments producing first-person perceptions and weak arguments no perceptual discrepancy, suggesting that message quality could be an element in social desirability (White, 1997). Moreover, White found a first-person perception for the ability to discern the difference between weak and strong message arguments. His experiment asked student participants to rate the influence of messages supporting college tuition increases, a highly relevant subject. Whereas the participants’ evaluations of the weak and strong arguments were significantly different, “[t]heir perceptions of the third persons, on the other hand, converged to the point of ascribing virtually no ability to discern between weak and strong argumentation” (p. 562). Further research indicated that participants felt themselves to be more persuaded than others by high-quality messages about safer sex as a means of protection from AIDS, with the converse true for low-quality content (Duck, Terry, & Hogg, 1995). Duck, Terry, and Hogg (1995) examined the perceived influence of 11 public service announcements dealing with preventing HIV/AIDS. Message quality, as determined by an independent sample and as perceived by the study’s participants, led to a series of interactions (message quality by person) interpreted as third-person perceptions for PSAs of relative poor quality and first-person perceptions for PSAs of relative high quality. The researchers noted that “perceptions of message influence on self and other vary in self-serving ways according to specific characteristics of the advertisement and the perceiver, and cannot be predicted by the valence of the content alone” (pp. 320–321; emphasis added). An extension of this study found that participants perceived that they and their student cohorts were about equally influenced by informative and emotional safer sex messages (Duck, Hogg, & Terry, 1999). 2 These arguments echo Neuwirth and Frederick’s (2002) notion of a second-person effect, which they defined as situations in which self and others are perceived to be “jointly influenced” (p. 117) by media content. Also, Gunther and Thorson (1992) found that both self and others were perceived to be influenced by a prosocial public service announcement, but not at levels that were significantly different from one another.

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The rationale for participants’ acceptance of the advocated position in the White (1997) study was based on a set of statements with which a group of pretest respondents said they agreed. Duck, Terry, & Hogg (1995) reported that it was subjective rather than objective evaluations of message quality that led to the greatest first-person perceptions. It appears, therefore, that beliefs about message quality and argument strength played a role in the first-person perceptions in the two studies. In these cases, the beliefs were about the criteria of high-quality argumentation. This suggests that other, more firmly held beliefs should produce greater influence over individuals’ judgments. HELD BELIEFS

Aside from message quality, a characteristic that seems to enhance message desirability is the extent to which persuasive content is congruent with one’s existing attitudes. Of course, if an editorial espouses what we believe, obviously it is desirable, and “smart people” should be influenced by it. Studies on messages about Holocaust-denial advertisements (Price, Tewksbury, & Huang, 1998) and political ads attacking the “other” candidate in a race (Cohen & Davis, 1991) found that congruency was strongly related to first-person effects. Congruity theory, in which individuals tend to downplay or ignore messages incongruent with their beliefs (Osgood & Tannenbaum, 1955) would certainly suggest that individuals would perceive incongruent messages as having a larger third-person perception, whereas congruent messages should reduce third-person and increase first-person perceptions. On the other hand, an experiment using a very controversial subject, late-term abortion regulation or rights, found that congruency was not related to first- or third-person effects (Andsager & White, 2001); rather, it played a major role in the perceived credibility of a proor antichoice editorial, which in turn influenced estimations of the message’s effect on self and others. In general, then, first-person perceptions have been found for messages that in various ways have been defined as reinforcing what participants already believe (Cohen & Davis, 1991; Meirick, 2004; Price et al., 1998; Reid & Hogg, 2005). Levels of perceived desirability, like attitudes toward message quality and argument strength, are a function of people’s held beliefs. Certain topics, certain media formats, certain message characteristics are perceived to be more desirable than others. Prosocial messages elicit responses based on the cultural predispositions of the message recipients (Cho & Han, 2004). These cultural predispositions are beliefs shared by members of the culture. Message recipients will react to persuasive appeals, therefore, in ways that are congruent with their held cultural beliefs. All of these perceptions are contingent on what people believe to be true about persuasive messages. In one way or another, all of these research findings reflect individuals reacting to the fact that media content, format, and/or quality are congruent

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with their previously held beliefs and attitudes about these concepts. McLeod and Chaffee (1973) defined congruency as an intraperson concept that is “indexed by the degree of similarity between the person’s own cognitions and his perception of the other person’s cognitions” (p. 485). In the realm of persuasive communication, a person (message receiver) can be fairly accurate in his or her estimates of the “other person’s” (message source) cognitions based on an evaluation of the content, format, quality, and other variables associated with a persuasive message emanating from that other person. Situations in which there is a high degree of congruence result in the reinforcement of one’s previously held beliefs or attitudes. Research indicates that it is a desire for self-enhancement combined with this state of congruence that leads to a first-person perception. A TRADITIONAL VIEW OF PERSUASION

This chapter presents evidence that the first-person effect, in a sense, does not really exist. Rather than being a unique phenomenon, the argument presented here is that the first-person effect is a component of a very traditional view of persuasion. Cartwright (1971), in a review of the U.S. government’s efforts to promote war bonds during World War II, described the processes and structures involved in that effort to persuade on a mass level. He also provided a traditional view of persuasion that can be used as a template to better understand the meaning of the first-person effect. Cartwright (1971) argued that persuasion involves three processes. The first is the creation of a specific cognitive structure, which is followed by the creation of a specific motivational structure, which leads to the creation of a specific behavioral structure. “Behavior is determined by the beliefs, opinions, and ‘facts’ a person possesses; by the needs, goals, and values he has; and by the momentary control held over his behavior by given features of his cognitive and motivational structure” (pp. 429–430). Cognitive Structure

Cognitive structure, according to Cartwright (1971), is a matrix of relationships among various forms of content in a person’s psychological world. This content can be in the form of things learned and attitudes formed in the past as well as information from external sources currently arriving at the person’s sense organs. As we noted earlier, the first-person effect has been found for media content that is desirable, that is of high quality, that is generally considered to be prosocial, that conforms to one’s culture, and that agrees with one’s attitudes. What occurs, then, is an interaction between new information in the form of media messages and a person’s existing cognitive structure. Cartwright contended that this in-

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formation is accepted or rejected based on the overall impression it makes on being received. Receivers, who tend to make heuristic-based judgments (Tversky & Kahneman, 1982a), evaluate this information predicated on its set of general characteristics. These general characteristics facilitate receivers’ attempts to place media content into preexisting categories. Depending on the category in which media content is placed, the message creates an initial impression that is favorable, neutral, or unfavorable. An example of these relationships is evident in an editorial, an editorial cartoon, and a letter to the editor that appeared in the student newspaper at Murray State University in Murray, Kentucky (“Spitting on the Constitution,” 2006). The student paper published an editorial reacting to the February 2006 U.S. Supreme Court decision not to hear Hosty v. Carter (2003, 2005), a case in which the 7th Court of Appeals upheld a lower court’s decision permitting the administrative review of the student publication at Governors State University in University Park, IL. The Murray State News published its editorial stating the “Supreme Court censors college press” (p. 4a). The cartoon accompanying the editorial depicted a student journalist making an inflammatory gesture on the steps of the Supreme Court with the caption “censor this” (p. 4a). Although the Supreme Court’s action can’t logically be described as a strong endorsement for press freedom, it is also logically untenable to describe its decision as censorship. The Court simply chose to not hear a case. It is true that the decision ended all hopes of reversing the lower court’s decision, but the actual censors in this situation were the university officials whose refusal to fund their students’ newspaper started the chain of legal events that stopped at the Supreme Court’s door. An event such as this is described as a “stimulus situation” (Cartwright, 1971, p. 431). “Total stimulus situations are selected or rejected on the basis of an impression of their general characteristics” (p. 431). The student journalists at Murray State had a number of sources from which they could have drawn material for their editorial. One possible source was the Student Press Law Center (2006), which their editorial cited. Another was the text of the decision handed down by the 7th Court of Appeals, which the students did not cite. Cartwright’s arguments would predict such a selection of source material because the preexisting “categories employed by a person in characterizing stimulus situations tend to protect him from unwanted changes in his cognitive structure” (p. 432). It is an understatement to note that student journalists have a tendency to resist censorship. The Student Press Law Center provided arguments for students’ press freedom; the court decision provided arguments in the opposite direction. As a stimulus, the Student Press Law Center provided the students with a set of general characteristics worthy, in their view, of being selected. A form of selective exposure, choos-

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ing from among stimulus situations leads individuals to encounters with persuasive and other forms of message content. In response to the students’ editorial, a reader of The Murray State News suggested in a letter to the editor that “Students can publish any opinion they like, provided they pay for the costs of publication and arrange for distribution by legal means.” The letter writer also stated “We all have the right to free speech, but none of us has the right to force others to pay for it” (Edminster, 2006, p. 4a). The newspaper staff covered the reader’s letter with a headline stating “Professor encourages newspapers (sic) censorship.” As with stimulus situations, Cartwright (1971) predicted, “The categories employed by a person in characterizing messages tend to protect him from unwanted changes in his cognitive structure” (p. 433). Rather than engage in a discussion of the legal precedent involved, the newspaper staff apparently characterized the letter to the editor as an endorsement of censorship because it fell short of supporting absolute and subsidized libertarianism. This characterization was made despite the letter writer’s insistence that he supported free expression. Cartwright (1971) argued that when messages such as that letter to the editor are encountered, messages that are inconsistent with one’s cognitive structure, one of three things will occur: • The message will be rejected. • The message will be distorted so as to fit the existing cognitive structure. • The message will lead to actual changes in the receiver’s cognitive structure. “Which of these outcomes will actually occur depends upon the relative strength of the forces maintaining the cognitive structure and of those carried by the new message” (p. 434). We might presume that the letter writer was hoping to change the newspaper staff’s cognitive structure concerning press freedom. What appears to have happened, however, was a distortion of the letter to make it fit the newspaper staff’s existing cognitive structure. Motivational Structure

Needs are part of individuals’ cognitive structures. These needs provide the “energy for behavior and express themselves through the setting of goals in the person’s cognitive structure” (Cartwright, 1971, p. 437). Different forms of behavior become relatively more acceptable as they are seen as the means of fulfilling those goals. Cartwright explained that for courses of action to be accepted as means to goal fulfillment, the behavior must fit the person’s cognitive structure. Furthermore, the more goals a behavior can fulfill, the more likely it will be chosen as an acceptable option.

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Finally, a form of behavior may be rejected in favor of an easier means of fulfilling one’s goals. Behavioral Structure

Hunger, thirst, or some other similar physiological motivation can quite reliably lead to predictable behavior because of the nature of the need being satisfied. “There are, however, other systems, much more commonly those with which campaigns of mass persuasion deal, which carry with them no insistent prod to action with any clear limitation of time” (Cartwright, 1971, p. 442). In cases of persuasive communication, efforts to persuade must create an insistent prod and time limits if they are to lead to changes in a person’s behavior. Cartwright noted that the more specifically defined and the more precisely located in time a course of action is, the more likely it is to actually be adopted as a means of goal attainment. An individual’s motivations to act can control actual behavior if a persuasive attempt creates a sense of urgency by placing the individual in a situation of having to decide to adopt or to not adopt a course of action. FIRST-PERSON EFFECT IMPLICATIONS

Research indicates that when people compare themselves with others, a need for self-enhancement (Taylor & Brown, 1988), feelings of unique invulnerability (Perloff & Fetzer, 1986), and a belief that “I” am somewhat above average (Alicke et al., 1995) all are part of people’s existing cognitive structures. Scholars have also found that messages that elicit first-person perceptions are of the form and/or content that agrees with the message receiver’s beliefs, attitudes, feelings, or worldview. When such messages are encountered, Cartwright (1971) predicted that they will be incorporated into the message receiver’s cognitive structure. The manner in which such messages can be incorporated into the self–other portion of one’s cognitive structure is by concluding that self, more than others, is persuaded by these messages. How we compartmentalize incoming information dictates how it affects our motivational structure in the context of the third-person effect hypothesis. That is, were an individual to encounter a message that fails to conform to his or her existing cognitive structure, it would likely be rejected outright (Cartwright, 1971). Even if the message did reach beyond the individual’s sense organs, its advocated position would be rejected. Now, suppose an individual happened to be in some way motivated to consider the same undesirable message in the context of making self–other comparisons. Cartwright contended that the individual would be able to make the message fit into his or her existing cognitive structure.

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For example, during the introduction of the November 15, 2004, Monday Night Football game between the Philadelphia Eagles and Dallas Cowboys, actress Nicollette Sheridan was featured in a short skit in which she played a towel-draped seductress who disrobed and jumped into the arms of Eagles’ wide receiver Terrell Owens. In addition to providing a lead-in for ABC’s signature line of “Are you ready for some football?” the skit promoted the network’s then-fledgling prime-time comedy “Desperate Housewives” (Biggs, 2004). During an interview later that week, Indianapolis Colts’ head coach Tony Dungy said “I’m very disappointed in ABC for what took place on Monday night. I’ve got a 12-year-old who does his homework early on Monday to watch that, and I was very, very disappointed” (Biggs, 2004, p. 139). Dungy also said he was troubled by the nude Sheridan, a Caucasian, jumping into the open arms of Owens, an African American. “I was offended, No. 1. I think it was racial” (p. 139). Dungy, who is African American, explained that he wasn’t necessarily influenced by the promotional spoof, but that the skit’s racial overtones, as well as his own 12-year-old child, motivated him to consider how it would influence other people. For a host of less-than-desirable messages, such as this, third-person effect research suggests that holding a belief that other people are more influenced by the incoming information than “I” am allows individuals to incorporate this information into their cognitive structures in a manner that makes sense from their personal perspectives. Of course, not everyone perceives the same message in the same way. For example, asked what he thought of Sheridan and Owens, Chicago Bears’ wide receiver Bobby Wade seemed to indicate that the promotion produced a first-person effect: “It’s Monday Night Football. That’s how it should be. Everybody is watching. I kind of want to watch (‘Desperate Housewives’) now. I heard it’s a crazy show” (Biggs, 2004, p. 139).3 So, for the persuasive messages and other forms of communication that are perceived to be “desirable” in nature, information that elicits first-person effects, a different situation exists. When encountered, these messages do conform to one’s beliefs system, and, as such, are likely to be incorporated into the message receiver’s cognitive structure. As Table 5.1 illustrates, first-person perceptions can be reflections of two possible combinations of self–other comparisons. First, one may perceive oneself to be positively influenced by a message that one also believes to positively influence other people. This may be the result of exposure to information congruent with held attitudes (Cohen & Davis, 1991), emotional appeals (Gunther & Thorson, 1992), high quality messages or strong argumentation (Duck, Terry, & Hogg, 3

A reaction such as this indicates the message receiver sees himself as a prototypical member of the group for which the message is a strong normative fit (Reid & Hogg, 2005).

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CHAPTER 5 TABLE 5.1 Perceptions of Message Influence on Self and Others by Message Type

Perceptions

Studies

Message Type

Self positively influenced; Others less positively influenced

Cohen & Davis (1991) Gunther &Thorson (1992) Duck, Terry, & Hogg (1995) Gunther & Hwa (1996) White (1997) Peiser & Peter (2000) White & Dillon (2000) Cho & Han (2004) Meirick (2005b) Chock & Lee (2005) Reid & Hogg (2005) Meirick (2004)

Congruent with attitudes Emotional High quality Television content Strong arguments Desirable TV use PSA PSA PSA PSA In-group TV programming In-group political ads

Self positively influenced; Others negatively influenced

1995; White, 1997), desirable television use (Peiser & Peter, 2000), television content (Gunther & Hwa, 1996), public service announcements (Cho & Han, 2004; Chock & Lee, 2005; Meirick, 2005b; White & Dillon, 2000), or in-group television programming (Reid & Hogg, 2005). Second, an individual may perceive himself or herself to be positively influenced by a message but others as negatively influenced. In this situation, self finds the message to be persuasive but perceives others as being dissuaded by the message. Meirick (2004) found this to be the case for in-group political ads. Courses of action that help a person achieve more than one goal are the behaviors more likely to be undertaken. “When such a situation exists, the forces directed toward these various goals will all assume the direction of the one action which is the path common to them all” (Cartwright, 1971, p. 440). Research indicates that the goal of self-enhancement can be fulfilled by making appropriate self–other comparisons. Moreover, persuasive appeals can be crafted to match people’s cognitive and motivational structures. If we assume the research is valid, it appears that a majority of firstperson perceptions are instances in which a single course of action can fulfill more than one goal. For example, if an individual believed that philanthropic endeavors are good for society, the goal of being a good citizen could be fulfilled by volunteering 5 hours a month to a charitable organization. If this same individual were to perceive that others also believe that philanthropy is a good idea and that they volunteer 5 hours a month, the individual could fulfill a second goal of self-enhancement by increasing the time

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volunteered to 10 hours a month. In first-person effect research, this would be a situation in which a person perceives himself or herself to be positively influenced by a concept that he or she also believes positively influences others (Table 5.1). It could be argued, then, that a successful public information campaign designed to encourage people to volunteer their time should employ two strategies. The first strategy would be explaining why volunteering is a good thing to do. This could be achieved by explaining volunteerism in ways that make it fit people’s existing cognitive structures. The second strategy would be emphasizing the fact that many other people also volunteer their time for philanthropic causes. This second strategy should include the number of hours other people typically spend in volunteer work. A STUDY: FIRST-PERSON STRATEGIES

We tested these ideas using the following information as the context for a laboratory experiment: By the spring of 2006, the Iraq War had become a divisive issue in the United States. Forty-five percent of adults believed that the use of force in Iraq was the right decision, 49% believed it was the wrong decision, and 6% remained undecided (The Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, 2006, March 16). A significant cause of the divisiveness surrounding the war was the number of American troops—more than 2,300 at that time—who had been killed since its beginning 3 years earlier (Iraq, 2006). In addition to these deaths, more than 17,000 had been wounded (Iraq). Of the wounded, thousands had suffered debilitating injuries. As a consequence of the large number of these injuries, a number of charitable organizations began raising money to build rehabilitation facilities for the returning troops who, in the opinion of the charity organizers, were being underserved by the American government. Method

Experimental subjects, who were 124 undergraduate students (aged 18 to 28; females = 63%) attending a midsized university, read a one-page description of a charitable organization’s efforts to construct rehabilitation facilities to be used by injured veterans of the Iraq War. The description included statistical information highlighting the number of wounded troops from the conflict, and it explained the debilitating nature of the wounds many of the troops had suffered. At the end of the description was a statement that said individuals throughout the United States had begun volunteering their time to help the organization raise funds. One third of the subjects (n = 42) were told that, on average, people were agreeing to volunteer 10 hours during the next 6 months. Another third (n = 41) were told

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that, on average, people were agreeing to volunteer 30 hours during the same time period. The remaining subjects (n = 41) were given no information regarding the number of hours others were volunteering. This manipulation created the variable Prior Knowledge. Next, a variable (Comparative Other) was created by asking one third of the subjects (n = 43) to compare their attitudes toward the Iraq War with supporters of the war; asking one third (n = 42) to make the same comparisons with war opponents; and allowing one third (n = 39) to choose the group (supporters or opponents) with whom they would make the comparisons. In addition to measuring demographics, questionnaire items measured the perceived worthiness (Worthiness) of the charitable organization, how many hours self would be willing to volunteer to help raise money for the charitable organization (Self Volunteer), and how many hours subjects thought members of their comparison group would be willing to volunteer (Others Volunteer). Additionally, subjects responded to seven-point Likert-type items that stated: “(Members of comparison group) would welcome the opportunity to volunteer for the charitable organization” (Others Welcome). A second item stated “I would welcome the opportunity to volunteer for the charitable organization” (Self Welcome). Finally, subjects were asked if they supported, were neutral on, or opposed the war (War Position). Results

Eighty-seven percent (n = 108) either agreed or strongly agreed that the charity was a worthy undertaking. Forty-five percent (n = 55) of the subjects supported the war; 15% (n = 18) were neutral; and 40% (n = 50) opposed the war. Four percent (n = 5) of the subjects were veterans. War supporters more than war opponents agreed that the charitable organization “is a worthy cause,” F (1, 121) = 4.59, p < .05; h2 = .04. Also, war supporters more than war opponents would “welcome the opportunity to volunteer” for the charitable organization, F (1, 121) = 4.11, p < .05; h2 = .03. As comparison others, war supporters more than war opponents were perceived to “welcome the opportunity to volunteer” for the charitable organization, F (1, 122) = 31.41, p < .001; h2 = .21.4 An analysis using the total data set is reflected in Figures 5.1 through 5.3. As these figures show, there was a significant interaction between War Position and Comparison Other on Others Volunteer and Self Volunteer, repeated-measures MANOVA F (2, 117) = 5.66, p < .01; h2 = .09. 4

Data were analyzed using a series of analyses of variance (ANOVA) with the war position variable as independent variable and the attitudinal item listed in each test as dependent variables.

Figure 5.1. War supporters’ perceived self–others volunteering by Comparison Other.

Figure 5.2. War neutrals’ perceived self–others volunteering by Comparison Other.

Figure 5.3. War opponents’ perceived self–others volunteering by Comparison Other.

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An additional analysis was conducted by limiting the data set to the subjects who were given Prior Knowledge about how many hours other people had agreed to volunteer for the charity. Figures 5.4 through 5.6 display the results of this analysis. There was a significant Prior Knowledge main effect on Others Volunteer and Self Volunteer, F (2, 74) = 3.68, p < .03; h2 = .09.5 Additionally, using these same data, Figures 5.4 through 5.6 show that a significant interaction occurred between War Position and

Figure 5.4.

Hours self and others would volunteer by Prior Knowledge by Comparison Other.

Figure 5.5.

Hours self and others would volunteer by Prior Knowledge by Comparison Other.

5 Analyses in this paragraph report results of repeated-measures MANOVA with the volunteering variables forming the dependent factor.

THE FIRST-PERSON EFFECT AS PERSUASION

Figure 5.6.

75

Hours self and others would volunteer by Prior Knowledge by Comparison Other.

Comparison Other on Others Volunteer and Self Volunteer, F (2, 75) = 5.24, p < .01; h2 = .12. Discussion

The findings in this small experiment indicate that, although virtually all of the participants thought the charitable organization was a worthy cause, volunteering for the organization was a better cognitive fit for war supporters than it was for war opponents. The findings also indicate that the study’s participants perceived this relationship to exist, that volunteering for the charitable organization is a better cognitive fit for war supporters than it was for war opponents. Figure 5.1 shows that when war supporters compared themselves with other war supporters (an in-group), a third-person perception emerged. When war supporters compared themselves with war opponents (an outgroup), on the other hand, a first-person perception became manifest. This finding agrees with results reported by both Cohen and Davis (1991) and Meirick (2004). Meirick found a first-person perception when his subjects compared themselves with political out-group members. When a comparison was made with political in-group members, however, a third-person perception emerged. Meirick concluded that these mixed findings may be the result of self-enhancing desire to “claim a moderate amount of beneficial influence from a desirable message while still maintaining a perception of relative impersuasibility and self-determination” (p. 250). In our study, war neutrals (Fig. 5.2) yielded results similar to those of war supporters.

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Unlike war supporters and war neutrals, war opponents (Fig. 5.3) thought both war supporters and war opponents were likely to volunteer more time than they would themselves, a third-person perception. When comparing themselves with war supporters, these participants’ cognitive structures dictated that supporters would be willing to volunteer more time (Cartwright, 1971). When comparing themselves with other war opponents, their desire for self-enhancement caused them to maintain a sense of relative impersuasibility (Meirick, 2004). Arguments offered by Reid and Hogg (2005) support the notion that war opponents didn’t see themselves as being prototypical members of the group for which volunteering is a strong normative fit. Therefore, when comparing themselves with others (regardless of the others’ war position), a third-person perception emerged. War supporters, a group whose cognitive structure would readily accept volunteering, reported they would volunteer more hours than war opponents, a group for whom volunteering was perceived to be a relatively weak cognitive fit. This first-person perception is what we would expect to find if war supporters: • Think volunteering is a good idea. • Engage in self-enhancement when comparing themselves with war opponents. • Can fulfill multiple goals by adopting one behavior. Figures 5.4 through 5.6 reflect similar findings, but also reveal that holding specific information about what others do affects the behavioral intentions of self. In other words, when told that others, on average, would volunteer 10 hours, participants indicated they would volunteer fewer hours than when told others, on average, would volunteer 30 hours. SUMMARY

Two situations exist in these data. One, exemplified by the war supporters, is a situation in which an existing cognitive structure can accommodate the incoming persuasive message. That is, war supporters would naturally accept that providing services to wounded war veterans is an idea worthy of one’s volunteered time. A second, exemplified by war opponents, is a situation in which an existing cognitive structure doesn’t necessarily accommodate this incoming persuasive message. In other words, war opponents, no matter how sympathetic they may be toward the plight of wounded veterans, must try to fit the notion of volunteering their time into their antiwar cognitive structure. Opponents may perceive such activity as a form of indicating a favorable position toward the war.

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The results of our study indicate that, although both war supporters and opponents were persuaded that volunteering time to help wounded veterans is a good idea, war supporters held this belief more strongly than did war opponents. How each group eventually placed this state of becoming persuaded into their existing cognitive structures is reflected by how they viewed themselves relative to others. For one group, war supporters, the cognitive fit was maintained by perceiving a first-person perception compared to war opponents (the out-group) and a third-person perception relative to other war supporters (in-group). For the war opponents, the cognitive fit was maintained by perceiving third-person perceptions relative to all others (both supporters and opponents). These results echo those of Meirick (2004) and of Reid and Hogg (2005). Evidence suggests that first-person perceptions become manifest when two conditions prevail. First, an incoming persuasive message should be a better fit for the receiver’s cognitive structure than it is perceived to be for the cognitive structures of other people. Second, when self–other comparisons are made, the others in question should be members of an out-group. When these conditions exist, becoming persuaded will likely manifest itself as a first-person perception.

6 Defining the Others

In proposing his third-person effect hypothesis, Davison (1983) provided examples of the kinds of “other people” who would become known as the objects of third-person perception. Two of these examples involved rather distinct groups of individuals fighting in World War II. First, Davison (1983) explained how White U.S. officers perceived African American servicemen on Iwo Jima to be inordinately vulnerable to Japanese propaganda. Japanese propagandists tailored a message (dropped via airborne leaflet) to their target audience. The message stated, in part, that the African American servicemen should not “risk your life for the white man” (p. 1). Of course, the officers leading the Marine invasion of the island also read the propaganda. Ultimately, the White officers relocated the servicemen away from the Japanese lines, placing them in a tactically less advantageous location. Davison suspected the Japanese were making more of a statement about the White officers than they were about the African American troops when they disseminated their propaganda. “[The Japanese propagandists] may not have expected the leaflets to have an effect on the troops themselves, but were instead trying to goad the white military command into taking the action that it apparently did take in fact—namely to withdraw the service units” (p. 2). In the second example, Davison (1983) told of a disinformation campaign the Allies employed in Western Europe. This time it was suggested to the German high command that Luftwaffe pilots were vulnerable to Allied radio broadcasts. This perceived vulnerability appears to have caused the German generals to suspect their own pilots of plotting to desert with their aircraft. This, in turn, caused the German leadership to increase the scrutiny of its combat pilots, resulting in a reduction of morale and fighting efficiency. 78

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DISCERNIBLE VERSUS GENERAL OTHERS

In those examples, the African American troops and the German pilots were well-defined groups of people. Beyond being discernible populations, these two groups of others were the ostensible targets of propaganda campaigns. And, from the perspective of the military leaders, these groups were targeted others about whom estimates of persuasive vulnerability were made. On Iwo Jima, the group was defined by race. In Western Europe, the group members had a wartime skill, that of a combat pilot. Regardless of how the groups are defined, it is clear that each was the apparent target of a propaganda message. Furthermore, it is clear that the people in charge took immediate action based on their expectations of the behavior by those they inferred to be the objects of these propaganda campaigns. In addition to these wartime examples, Davison (1983) discussed two other instances that he had personally experienced. One involved occasions when he had spoken with journalists about the impact of newspaper editorials. He found that the journalists tended to tell him that the editorials “have little effect on people like you and me, but the ordinary reader is likely to be influenced quite a lot” (p. 2). The journalists with whom Davison spoke referred to “people like you and me,” a group of inferentially extraordinary readers of editorials. The journalist then compared members of this in-group with “ordinary readers,” a generalized population of others. In one final example, Davison (1983) related his reaction to a slick political leaflet that supporters of an opposition candidate had distributed to the electorate in the late stages of a campaign. It so happened that Davison was concerned about the outcome of this particular election. His heightened interest in the election, coupled with his perception of other voters, led Davison to conclude that the political propaganda would have a dramatic impact on voting behavior. As a countermeasure, therefore, he took it upon himself to distribute to these same voters information from the candidate he supported. As Davison later discovered, however, “postelection analyses suggested that neither set of propaganda materials had exerted much influence on the voters” (p. 2). In these latter two examples, the others in question constituted no discernible groups. The others were ordinary newspaper readers in the 1950s and registered voters during a general election in a nation that enjoys universal suffrage. They merely composed a generalized audience consisting of those who could have been exposed to the message under consideration. They Aren’t “Me”

As Davison’s (1983) examples demonstrate, others can be defined as being more or less identifiable. Depending on how clearly defined the others in

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question are, they tend to be perceived as suffering from one and possibly two disadvantages. If the others are a generalized population such as Davison’s registered voters and ordinary newspaper readers, they are burdened by the shortcoming of not being “like me.” They aren’t part of “my crowd.” Taken to its extreme, this biased view condemns a generalized group of other people for not being “me,” the ultimate in-group. They Are “Them”

If, on the other hand, the others compose an identifiable collection of people such as the African American servicemen on Iwo Jima or the Luftwaffe pilots, they not only have the drawback of not being “me,” but enough information about these poor souls is available to conclude that they also suffer from being “them.” TWO LEVELS

Thus, it appears that there are two levels on which we engage in third-person perception. On one level, we determine how different from ourselves the other people in question are. As the difference increases, our perception that others will be influenced also increases. This level involves systematic analysis as well as employing a heuristic or judgment rule (see chap. 7). Systematically, we can estimate the similarity between ourselves and others. We employ a judgment rule, however, when we conclude that others are more likely influenced by persuasive communication based solely on these calculations of dissimilarity. An example of this level might be a college sophomore. If she systematically estimated the level of similarity between herself and her sorority sisters, she would likely determine that the similarity was fairly high. In contrast, when she evaluated the level of similarity between herself and the professors at her university. that level would probably be much lower. Therefore, when the college sophomore reads an editorial in the campus newspaper, she should expect that the dissimilar professors would be more susceptible than her similar sorority sisters to the persuasion contained in the editorial—especially if the editorial was on a distasteful subject, such as scheduling required classes on Saturday mornings. On the second level, we determine whether the others in question possess characteristics that would lead them to being influenced by a particular attempt to persuade. This process is more purely systematic in nature and was illustrated by the Nazi high command, which was capable of systematically analyzing the potential to defect of various components of its military. Having the means (their own airplanes and the skill to fly them to England) along with potential motivation, Luftwaffe pilots were more logical candidates for close scrutiny than ground troops serving in the Wehrmacht, who

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would find it rather difficult to march across the English Channel. Although the German leaders may very well have determined that skilled Luftwaffe pilots were a good bit more similar to themselves than were common Wehrmacht soldiers, the generals nevertheless paid particular attention to the air crews rather than to the ground troops. JUDGMENTS UNDER UNCERTAINTY

Although considering the levels of self–other similarity and degrees of message targetability allows for systematic analyses leading to third-person (or first-person) perception, situations also exist that allow for employment of heuristic strategies alone. For example, faced with trying to evaluate the vulnerability of groups of others described in such terms as “the public at large” or “the average person,” the decision maker has no useful information with which to work. Moreover, research suggests that group size influences perceptions of others, muddying the waters further (Tewksbury, 2002). Paek et al.(2005) argued that third-person perceptions of others about whom little information is available take on the characteristics of heuristic processes. These researchers maintained that third-person perception is a “cognitive fallacy in social judgments under varying degrees of uncertainty defined as insufficient information for completing a judgment task” (p. 144). They stated that two types of information are necessary before one can make accurate judgments about the impact of a persuasive message on other people. First, information about the message itself is necessary, and, second, information about the others in question is required. Otherwise, “if information about one or both is unavailable, the likelihood and size of the message effect on each target become unpredictable” (p. 144). Left with little substantive information to examine, individuals must resort to heuristic judgment rules when making third-person evaluations of how others will behave in response to a persuasive message. One of the heuristics that can be used is the realization that “other people aren’t me.” As it happens, this is the extent of the available information about a generalized group of others—they aren’t “me.” The argument here is that a generalized group of others presents the evaluator with the dilemma of having to make a decision under conditions of uncertainty (Tversky & Kahneman, 1982a, 1982b). Petty and Cacioppo (1986) discussed this notion in their postulates for the elaboration likelihood model of persuasion. Describing persuasive messages, they argued that the likelihood of a person’s systematic processing depends on the motivation and ability to do so. Therefore, having no specific information about the other people in question, the ability to create systematic third-person perceptions would be absent. The only alternative is to react to some readily available heuristic. We suggest that an often-used heuristic is “they,” as in “they aren’t me.”

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NORMATIVE FIT

Reid and Hogg (2005), on the other hand, contended that third-person perceptions of discernible groups are systematic. They suggested that perceptual discrepancies are the result of evaluating how out-group members (identifiable groups of others) orient themselves with a mass-mediated message. As noted in chapter 5, if there is a strong normative fit between the message and the out-group, Reid and Hogg argued that the others will be perceived as being influenced. If there is no normative fit, influence on the out-group will not be assumed. For example, an agnostic living in Manhattan would perceive fundamentalist Christians from Alabama to be more influenced by a fire-and-brimstone, tent revival sermon than Hasidic Jews living in the upper Midwest. This kind of distinction making between fundamentalist Christians and Hasidic Jews is possible because the two groups have been identified. Assuming that the agnostic knows something about the two groups as well as something about the sermon, it is possible for this person to evaluate the message, to evaluate the two potential audiences, and to reach a reasoned conclusion about which group of others would be more influenced. From the perspective of the agnostic, neither the Christians nor the Jews are “me.” In this case, however, the heuristic wouldn’t necessarily act alone on the judgment task. With it may also be a reasoned analysis made possible by the available information. This also suggests that conclusions resulting from the systematic processing of information will dominate conclusions that are the result of heuristic processes. Petty and Cacioppo’s (1986) elaboration likelihood model makes a similar argument in its seventh postulate, which states: “Attitude changes that result mostly from processing issue-relevant arguments will show greater temporal persistence, greater prediction of behavior, and greater resistance to counterpersuasion than attitude changes that result mostly from peripheral cues” (p. 5). VARYING LEVELS OF OTHERS

Since Cohen, Mutz, Price, and Gunther (1988) introduced the notion of social distance to describe different levels of others, researchers have examined the nature of these other people as they affect third-person perception. Others have been examined as generalized populations as well as discernible groups. For example, Cohen et al. (1988) defined others as a discernible group of “other Stanford students,” as a more general but still discernible population of “other Californians,” and as the generalized “public opinion at large” (p. 167). This kind of hierarchical arrangement of other people in third-person effect research came to be known as levels of social distance.

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In the Cohen et al. (1988) study, Stanford University students were asked to evaluate the persuasive influence of messages on these groups of other people. Other Stanford students were considered less socially distant than other Californians, who were less socially distant than public opinion at large. This study, as well as a number of others, found that as the social distance from self increases, so does perceived influence of a persuasive message. In his review and analysis of the third-person effect, Perloff (1999) identified 10 articles that had reported studies testing, in one way or another, this social-distance corollary. We added to Perloff ’s list nine additional articles that have done the same since his review. In all, these 19 articles report the results of 33 data sets that examined multiple levels of others and found third-person, rather than first-person, perceptions. This chapter examines the results of these 33 data sets to determine whether and/or how the nature of others affects third-person perception. In research focusing on the social-distance corollary, “others” have been operationalized in at least 34 different ways. As Table 6.1 illustrates, these 34 operational definitions of “others” can be grouped into 10 categories: • • • • • • • • • •

Personal relationships—friends, family, etc. Educational relationships—others in my class, school, etc. Group relationships—in-group others and out-group others. Geographic relationships—others in my city, state, etc. Age relationships—others younger than I, older, etc. Education—grade school, high school, etc. Race Gender Targeted others At-Large others

The first five of these categories comprise discernible, self-referent groups of others. That is, these groups not only can be identified, they also are defined by their relationship to self. The only constant in these studies is the concept of self. Consider, for example, that asking residents of Iowa to compare themselves with other citizens of their state conjures up images of a different population from that which would result from asking residents of Kentucky to do the same thing. My friends, my class, my group, my age, my locale—all use self as the descriptive anchor from which comes an understanding of who the others are. The next three categories—education, race, and gender—are discernible, nonreferent groups. These others can be identified, but when providing the identification there is no stated referent to use as an anchor. Of course, a male participant would understand that a female other is not a member of

C

M

M

M

Others in General Fellow Students/MTV Targeted

Bankers/CNBC Trailer Trash/Jerry Springer Affected Neighborhood Affected City Gender

Black

Education

Female

Race

NY/LA Youth/Rap Music

Male

White Grade School Graduate High School Graduate College Graduate Eight Years Younger

Age

Forty Years Older B

Same Nation

B

M

Same State

B

Same Region M

Person

Same Age Eight Years Older

Geographic

TABLE 6.1 Self vs. Others by Study*

Four Years Younger

Same County Same City

Ed. Relat.

At Other Universities

Friends/Acquaintances

C

Group

Out-Group

Personal

Same Neighborhood

M M Gunther, 1991 A

A M M

In Class Non-Acquaintance

Closest Friend(s)

A M A

M A

At University

B

In-Group

84

A

A

Duck & Mullin (I), 1995

Duck & Mullin (II), 1995

Duck, Hogg, A & Terry, 1995

A Cohen & Davis, 1991

Study

Self

Cohen et al., 1988

Family

85

B

B

M M

A

A

Henriksen & Flora (II), 1999

Peiser & Peter, 2000

Henriksen & A Flora (I), 1999

Eveland et al. A (II), 1999

Eveland et al. A (Ic), 1999

Eveland et al. A (Ib), 1999

M M

B

A

White, 1997

B

Eveland et al. A (Ia), 1999

A

Brosius & Engel, 1996

B

A M

Gibbon & Durkin (II), 1995

McLeod et al. A (a), 1997

A M

Gibbon & Durkin (I), 1995 M

M

M

M

M

M

M

A

B

B

C

C

D

E

B

C

D

C

(continued)

C

M

C

B

C

M

M

B

Others in General Fellow Students/MTV

Trailer Trash/Jerry Springer B

Targeted

Bankers/CNBC

Affected Neighborhood

B

Affected City

Education

Black White

B B

Male

B

Female

B

Race

Gender

NY/LA Youth/Rap Music

Grade School Graduate High School Graduate College Graduate Eight Years Younger

Age

Forty Years Older Same Nation Same Region Same State

B

Person

Same Age Eight Years Older

Geographic

TABLE 6.1

(continued)

Four Years Younger

Same County Same City

At Other Universities

B

M

Group

Out-Group

Ed. Relat.

Same Neighborhood

C

B

C

In-Group

At University In Class

A

Friends/Acquaintances

B

Personal

Non-Acquaintance

Closest Friend(s)

86

A

A

A

A

David et al., 2002

David et al. (I), 2004

David et al. (II), 2004

David et al. (III), 2004

Neuwirth & Frederick (b), A 2002

Study

Self

Neuwirth & Frederick (a), A 2002

Family

87

B

A

A

A

A

A

A

A

Meirick (b), 2004

Paek et al., (Ia), 2005

Paek et al., (Ib), 2005

Paek et al., (II), 2005

Reid & Hogg (a), 2005

Reid & Hogg (b), 2005

Reid & Hogg (c), 2005

Meirick, 2005a

B

A

C

A

B

A

A

C

C

C

B

C

B

D

D D

D

D

D

D

B B B D

B

B

Note. Different letters within each row signify the reporting of statistically significant third-person effects between/among the persons indicated. An “A/M” contrast signifies a multivariate analysis was reported. An “A/B/C/etc.” contrast signifies a univariate test(s) was/were reported.

A

Meirick (a), 2004

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“my” gender, but that would be a determination the participant would have to make on his own without having been prompted to consider the self per se. Furthermore, in these studies the identity of the others in question remains constant as one progresses from participant to participant. The population of females is the same group of people, regardless of the gender of the person engaging in third-person perception. Thus, in these studies actually describing some population(s) of others leads to an understanding of who comprises the others. And this understanding remains relatively constant from person to person. Targeted others, the ninth category, are a discernible, message-referent group of others who are defined by their relationship to the message. Davison’s (1983) African American troops on Iwo Jima and Luftwaffe pilots were defined by their respective military leaders as ostensible targets of propaganda messages. In fact, the only reason the African American servicemen and Luftwaffe pilots were relevant as discernible groups of others in these situations was the leaders’ belief that the propaganda was tailored specifically for them. In this context, they were defined by the message. Construed in this manner, groups of others can be perceived to be more or less “close” to the message. This “target corollary” is defined by Meirick (2005a) as “the extent (to which) that group is perceived as the target of a type of media content, the perceived effects on them will be greater” (p. 823). In these situations, understanding who comprises the others in question depends on one’s understanding of the message and the context in which it appears. Different individuals have different abilities in this regard. Furthermore, they selectively perceive messages and message contexts differently from one another. This results in some variability in understanding exactly who is targeted (and how directly) by any particular message. Finally, at-large others are a nondiscernible, general-referent group. They are composed of undifferentiated collections of people, such as “public opinion at large” or “the general public.” Davison’s (1983) average newspaper reader and average voter would be examples of general-referent others. In the studies displayed in Table 6.1, any variability among participants as they react to the others in question would be the result of their visceral response to the concept of “others.” In sum, these 10 categories can be collapsed into four broad categories of discernible and nondiscernible others: Discernible Others

• Self-referent • Nonreferent • Message-referent

DEFINING THE OTHERS

89

Nondiscernible Others

• General-referent. As scholars have gone about the business of exploring the social-distance corollary, it is general-referent others who have received a plurality of the analytical attention. As Table 6.1 indicates, 15 of the 33 data sets include the third-person perception of general-referent others. Specifically, the published research has contrasted perceptions of general-referent others with perceptions of all five of the self-referent groups—personal relationships, educational relationships, group relationships, geographic relationships, and age relationships. Additionally, third-person perception of general-referent others has been contrasted with third-person perception of message-referent, or targeted, others. INDEXING SELF–OTHER PERCEPTIONS

Figures 6.1 through 6.6 are the result of simple meta-analyses.1 The purpose was to discover the relative third-person perceptions of self-referent, message-referent, and general-referent others. That is, for which categories of others have researchers found the greatest third-person perceptions? For which categories of others have researchers found the smallest third-person perceptions? Self-Referent Others

Figures 6.1 through 6.5 depict the relative third-person perceptions of self-referent others and general-referent others. As shown in the figures, people appear to have a tendency to perceive general-referent others as more susceptible to the effects of persuasive communication than self-referent others. Figure 6.1 indicates that when compared with others defined in terms of personal relationships, general-referent others are perceived to be about 80% more influenced than self by the messages or media content used as 1 As the figures indicate, indexes were created. Perceived influence on self was the base from which each index number was created. Regardless of the rating scale(s) used in a particular study, the score for perceived self-influence was divided into each of the study’s reported scores. Hence, self-evaluation was divided into itself, yielding an index of 100. An index of 150, for example, indicates a reported score 50% higher than that reported for self-influence and an index of 200 indicates a reported score 100% higher than that reported for self-influence. Once index numbers were created for each individual study, they were averaged to create the figures reported here. So, Figure 6.1 indicates that across the studies that examined Personal Relationships, “closest friend” was perceived to be 1% more influenced than the self, “family” members were perceived to be 23% more influenced than the self, “friends/acquaintances” were perceived to be 32% more influenced than the self, “nonacquaintances” were perceived to be 27% more influenced than the self, and “at-large others” were perceived to be 80% more influenced than the self.

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Figure 6.1. Personal relationships versus at-large others.

stimuli. By contrast, researchers have found that perceptions of self-referent others range from being virtually the same as self (closest friend) to about 30% more influenced (friends and acquaintances). The psychological relationship of “closest friends” is perceived to be more like the self than the physical relationship of “family members.” Interestingly, researchers have found that famous people unknown by their subjects (nonacquaintance) are perceived much the same as friends and acquaintances. Compared with others defined in terms of educational relationships, general-referent others are perceived to be about 100% more influenced than self (see Fig. 6.2). This figure also indicates that college students see a great deal of similarity between themselves and other college students in general. By contrast, they perceive others in their class and at their university to be approximately 60% more influenced than they are themselves. General-referent others are perceived to be about 30% more influenced than self when compared with others defined in terms of group relationships, as shown in Figure 6.3. Researchers have found a great deal of similarity between out-group members and general-referent others. Interestingly,

Figure 6.2. Educational relationships versus at-large others.

DEFINING THE OTHERS

91

Figure 6.3. Group relationships versus at-large others.

in-group members are perceived to be about 20% more influenced than self—not as much difference between overall in- and out-group perceptual discrepancies as we might expect, given the findings discussed in chapter 5. Figure 6.4 shows that, when compared with others defined in terms of geographic relationships, general-referent others are perceived to be about 90% more influenced than self. Others from the participants’ states are perceived to be similar to general-referent others, whereas others from the participants’ neighborhoods and own nations are, respectively, perceived to be about 30% and 50% more influenced than self. As shown in Figure 6.5, when compared with others defined in terms of age relationships, general-referent others are perceived to be about 100% more influenced than self. In something of a reverse social-distance corollary, others closest in age to self were perceived to be more easily influenced than others 40 years older, who were perceived to be very much like self in terms of susceptibility to influence. This is likely due to the more direct self-enhancement comparisons possible among members of one’s own age group than of older people. Considering that participants in studies that

Figure 6.4. Geographic relationships versus at-large others.

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Figure 6.5. Age relationships versus at-large others.

asked about “people 40 years older” were college students, they are probably invoking their parents as the imagined older others. It’s much more difficult to make downward comparisons for parents than for some peers. We can legitimately point out that the findings depicted in Figures 6.1 through 6.5 do not represent all possible findings in all possible circumstances for all possible messages exposed to all possible audiences. They represent only the findings of these completed, published studies.2 On the other hand, the pattern of the available evidence is fairly clear. 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. Furthermore, the available evidence tends to support the social-distance corollary. In four of the five categories of others, the patterns of findings indicate that as others are defined as more distant from self, perceived media influence increases. The one exception was the category of age relationships. In that study (Meirick, 2005a), older others were perceived to be more like self than same-age others. Despite this reversal of the social-distance corollary, others anchored to self were perceived to be less influenced than general-referent, or at-large, others. Using self as a point of reference to define others, then, appears to lead to perceptions of relatively small message influence on these same others. Others defined in general terms, conversely, tend to be perceived as somewhat more influenced than self-referent others. Furthermore, the systematic processing necessary for discerning varying levels of social distance appears to trump the heuristic reaction to general others in that as others are more closely identified with self, the smaller the perceived influence tends to become. 2 Paul, Salwen, and Dupagne (2000) found no significant differences between published and unpublished studies in their meta-analysis.

DEFINING THE OTHERS

93

Message-Referent Others

The research findings are somewhat different for message-referent others, however. Figure 6.6 depicts the relative third-person perception of messagereferent others and general-referent others. Unlike the patterns for self-referent others, in this case people tend to perceive general-referent others as less susceptible to the effects of persuasive communication than messagereferent others. That is, others who cannot be identified are perceived to be less influenced by persuasive messages than are others who are defined by their relationship to the message. The social-distance corollary argues that as others are defined in terms more closely anchored to the self, perceived influence on these others decreases. The pattern of findings depicted in Figures 6.1 through 6.5 supports this notion. Our informal meta-analysis of message-referent others, however, indicates a pattern in the opposite direction. That is, as others are defined in terms more closely anchored to the message, perceived influence on these others tends to increase (see Fig. 6.6). We found only two studies that examined message-referent others in the context of the social-distance corollary (McLeod, Eveland, & Nathanson, 1997; Neuwirth & Frederick, 2002), but the findings reported in these studies suggest intriguing possibilities. For example, it seems the referent to which one anchors “other people” and how closely one anchors them to that referent determines third-person perception. It appears there is a third-person perception continuum. At one end is self as referent and at the other end is message as referent. Between the two endpoints are general-referent others. Figure 6.7 illustrates our proposed continuum. Perceived Influence Continuum

When defined by their relationship to the self, groups of others are actually different populations of people depending on who defines them. “People liv-

Figure 6.6. Targeted by message versus at-large others.

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Figure 6.7. Perceived persuasive influence by referent.

ing in my city” constitutes two different populations when the question is asked of a person living in Bozeman, Montana, rather than a person living in Boston, Massachusetts. Thus, when first persons engage in third-person perception of family members, best friends, classmates, schoolmates, neighbors, fellow city residents, and/or fellow state residents, each of the first persons is asked to consider different sets of (sometimes amorphous groups of) people. Having presumably identified the others in question, the first persons then go about the process of developing a third-person perception. Given the basic third-person effect hypothesis, it is not surprising that research results would tend to indicate what has come to be known as the social-distance corollary. Conversely, others who are defined and identified as being targeted by a persuasive message constitute relatively unchanging populations of people. That is, an individual living in Boston understands the target audience of MTV to be pretty much the same population as does a resident of Bozeman. The defining anchor for these groups of others is the message. Message-referent others are defined as being targeted by the message. Hence, given that self is not part of the definition and that the others are defined as targeted by the message, it follows logically that these others would be perceived to be highly influenced, which provides an instance of the role of media effects schema (McLeod et al., 1997; Perloff, 1993b). Between self-referent and message-referent others are groups of others defined in general terms such as “the public at large,” those that we call general-referent others. Neither perceived as close to the self nor close to the message, general-referent others have no defining anchor. They tend to be perceived as more influenced than self-referent others but less influenced than message-referent others. A STUDY ON REFERENT GROUPS

To test these arguments, White, Andsager, and Crawford (2005) conducted a study in which third-person perceptions of self-referent, message-referent, and general-referent others were compared. We hypothesized:

DEFINING THE OTHERS

95

H1. Across messages, perceived influence on others is greater than perceived influence on self. H2. When self is used as a descriptive anchor, perceived influence on general-referent others is greater than perceived influence on self-referent others, which is greater than perceived influence on self. H3. When the message is used as a descriptive anchor, perceived influence on message-referent others is greater than perceived influence on general-referent others. Method

One hundred thirty-nine undergraduate students participated in a laboratory experiment in which they were randomly exposed to one of four media messages. The messages were of the form and content typical of television Web site home pages dedicated to promoting individual television programs. The group assignments and TV programs were: • Group One received information promoting the prosocial effects of becoming a mentor. • Group Two received Web page information promoting Fear Factor. This program is a reality-type game show on which 20- to 30-year-old contestants test their nerve by performing a variety of often repulsive, don’t-try-this-at-home stunts. • Group Three received Web page information promoting CNBC, the cable news channel dedicated to covering Wall Street and other financial topics. • Group Four received Web page information promoting The Jerry Springer Show, a syndicated talk program that features guests from several demographic groups engaging in socially unacceptable conduct. The latter two groups replicated part of Reid and Hogg’s (2005) experiment on Stanford University students. Subjects also were asked to consider six groups of other people. They were: • • • • • •

Other students in the subjects’ class Other students at the subjects’ university Students attending other universities High school dropouts Investment bankers The public at large.

Students in the subjects’ class, at the subjects’ university, and attending other universities were the operationalizations of self-referent others. High

96

CHAPTER 6

school dropouts and investment bankers represented message-referent others targeted by The Jerry Springer Show and CNBC, respectively. The public at large operationalized general-referent others. Next was measured the subjects’ perceptions of the following: • The level of similarity between the subjects and each of the six groups of others (Similarity). • The level of message exposure for self and each group of others (Exposure). • The level of perceived attitude change for self and each group of others resulting from message exposure (Attitude Change). • The level of anticipated behavior change for self and each group of others resulting from message exposure (Behavior Change). Results

The study’s first hypothesis was equivalent to the basic third-person effect hypothesis. To test H1, univariate analyses of variance of Person (self and the six levels of others) on Attitude Change and on Behavior Change were conducted. Both tests were statistically significant: Attitude Change, F (6, 958) = 3.51, p < .01; Behavior Change, F (6, 952) = 15.98, p < .001. Tables 6.2 and 6.3 display the group means and post hoc analyses. As the tables indicate, support for H1 was stronger for Behavior Change than it was for Attitude Change, but the overall trend in the findings supports this hypothesis. The second hypothesis predicted that subjects would perceive greater message influence on general-referent than on self-referent others, and greater message influence on self-referent others than on self. Before H2 could be tested, however, it was necessary to first identify the self-referent TABLE 6.2 Mean Attitude Change Scores by Person Person

N

SD

Self

a

3.22

138

1.72

Other students in class

3.64a

138

1.59

a

138

1.59

a

138

1.54

Public at large

b

4.12

138

1.62

High school dropouts

3.75a

137

2.01

a

138

1.46

Other students at university Students at other universities

Investment bankers

Mean

3.61 3.73

3.75

Note. Means with different superscripts are significantly different in post hoc analysis (adjustment for multiple comparisons: Bonferroni).

97

DEFINING THE OTHERS TABLE 6.3 Mean Behavior Change Scores by Person Person

Mean

N

SD

Self

a

2.00

137

1.33

Other students in class

2.76b

137

1.29

b

137

1.26

b

137

1.31

c

Other students at university Students at other universities

2.89 3.12

Public at large

3.69

137

1.47

High school dropouts

3.25b,c

137

2.02

b,c

137

1.54

Investment bankers

3.16

Note. Means with different superscripts are significantly different in post hoc analysis (adjustment for multiple comparisons: Bonferroni).

others in this study. These others were operationalized as other students in the subjects’ class, other students at their university, and students attending other universities. To test the validity of these assumptions, a series of paired samples t-tests among the six Similarity pretest items was conducted. As Table 6.4 indicates, the three groups of student others were perceived to be “slightly similar” to the subjects. The public at large was perceived to be neither similar nor dissimilar. High school dropouts were considered “dissimilar,” and investment bankers were perceived to be “slightly dissimilar.” Furthermore, the three groups of student others were perceived to be alike in their relationship to self and different from the remaining groups of others in this regard. Given these results, the three TABLE 6.4 Mean Similarity Pretest Scores by Person Person

N

SD

a

138

1.44

a

138

1.39

Students at other universities

a

4.78

139

1.27

Public at large

4.22b

139

1.31

d

138

1.15

c

138

1.42

Other students in class Other students at university

High school dropouts Investment bankers

Mean 4.71 4.64

2.11 2.53

Note. Means with different superscripts are significantly different in paired-samples t-tests (adjustment for multiple comparisons: Bonferroni). Scale scores indicate: 1 = very dissimilar; 2 = dissimilar; 3 = slightly dissimilar; 4 = neutral, 5 = slightly similar; 6 = similar; 7 = very similar.

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groups of student others were used as this study’s self-referent others for further analysis. Table 6.5 shows the results of a multivariate analysis of treatment group assignment on the seven Attitude Change items, F (21, 387) = 6.15, p < .001; h2 = .23. Table 6.6 shows the results of a similar test of treatment group assignment on the seven Behavior items, F (21, 387) = 8.71, p < .001; h2 = .30. As the pattern of results for the post hoc analyses in Table 6.5 reveals, some support for H2 was found when the programs under consideration were CNBC and The Jerry Springer Show. Results of the post hoc analyses reported in Table 6.6, however, are in much stronger support of the second hypothesis. The third hypothesis predicted that subjects would perceive greater message impact on message-referent others than on general-referent others. Although CNBC and The Jerry Springer Show were chosen to operationally define programs for which investment bankers and high school dropouts would, respectively, be message-referent others, it was necessary to test the validity of these assumptions. Table 6.7 shows the results of a multivariate

TABLE 6.5 Mean Perceived Influence on Attitude Change by Program by Person Program Mentor (n = 33)

F. Factor (n = 34)

CNBC (n = 36)

J. Springer (n = 35)

Self

3.67 (1.42)

2.79 (1.65)

3.64a (1.85)

2.77a (1.71)

Others in class

4.00b (1.48)

2.94a (1.50)

3.97a,bb (1.58)

3.63a,ba,b (1.63)

Others at university

4.00 (1.48)

3.00 (1.55)

3.81a,b (1.57)

3.63a,b (1.67)

At other universities

4.15b (1.37)

3.00a (1.53)

4.03a,bb (1.53)

3.74a,ba,b (1.66)

Public at large

4.36b (1.17)

3.29a (1.59)

4.75bb (1.26)

4.03ba,b (1.45)

High school dropouts

3.64 (1.75)

3.55 (1.62)

3.42a (1.62)

4.40b (1.43)

Investment bankers

3.36a (1.19)

2.50a (1.79)

6.06cb (1.30)

2.94aa (1.75)

Person

Note. For columns, means with different superscripts are significantly different in post hoc analysis. For rows, means with different subscripts are significantly different in post hoc analysis (adjustment for multiple comparisons: Bonferroni). Standard deviations appear in parentheses below means.

99

DEFINING THE OTHERS TABLE 6.6 Mean Perceived Influence on Behavior Change by Program by Person Program Person

Mentor (n = 33)

F. Factor (n = 34)

CNBC (n = 36)

J. Springer (n = 35)

Self

2.55ab (1.33)

1.85aa,b (1.20)

2.43a b (1.60)

1.37aa (.80)

Others in class

2.21a,ba (1.28)

2.85ba (1.22)

2.66ab (1.34)

2.63b,ca (1.36)

Others at university

3.27a,b (1.28)

2.79b (1.13)

2.83a (1.31)

2.69b,c (1.27)

At other universities

3.55b,c (1.14)

3.18b (1.19)

2.86a (1.40)

2.94b,c,d (1.40)

Public at large

3.88c (1.27)

3.29b (1.40)

4.00b (1.75)

3.60c,d (1.68)

High school dropouts

2.97a,ba,b (1.63)

3.27ba,b (1.26)

2.86aa (1.39)

3.89db (1.48)

Investment bankers

2.88a,bb (1.11)

1.85aa (1.37)

5.80cc (1.56)

2.06a,ba (1.36)

Note. For columns, means with different superscripts are significantly different in post hoc analysis. For rows, means with different subscripts are significantly different in post hoc analysis (adjustment for multiple comparisons: Bonferroni). Standard deviations appear in parentheses below means.

analysis of treatment group assignment on the seven Exposure items, F (21, 390) = 10.46, p < .001; h2 = .33. A message-referent other was defined as a person perceived to be the target of a media message. Furthermore, a message’s perceived target was defined as a person perceived to be exposed to the message more than other audience members, as well as exposed to that message more than to other messages. Given the universe of media programming used for this study, the results reported in Table 6.7 indicate that investment bankers were, indeed, message-referent others for CNBC, and high school dropouts were message-referent others for The Jerry Springer Show. Table 6.7 also reveals, however, that members of the public at large were also somewhat perceived to be message-referent others for The Jerry Springer Show—a likely self-enhancement artifact. No message-referent groups were found for the Mentoring PSA or Fear Factor. Returning to Tables 6.5 and 6.6, then, we can see that H3 was fully supported when the message was CNBC and supported somewhat when the message was The Jerry Springer Show. Both Tables 6.5 and 6.6 indicate that

100

CHAPTER 6 TABLE 6.7 Mean Perceived Exposure by Program by Person Program Mentor (n = 33)

F. Factor (n = 34)

CNBC (n = 36)

J. Springer (n = 35)

Self

2.67aa/b (1.59)

3.56ab (1.84)

2.97ab (1.68)

1.77aa (1.01)

Others in class

3.36aa (1.65)

4.56bb (1.27)

3.31aa (1.53)

3.91ba,b (1.26)

Others at university

3.24aa (1.56)

4.65bb (1.07)

3.53aa (1.58)

3.80ba,b (1.23)

At other universities

3.67aa (1.51)

4.85bb (.99)

3.83a,ba (1.65)

4.00ba,b (1.28)

Public at large

4.21ba (1.21)

5.27bb (.91)

4.86ba,b (1.26)

4.49b,ca (1.12)

High school dropouts

3.76aa (1.73)

5.12bb (1.22)

3.11aa (1.78)

4.97cb (1.29)

Investment bankers

3.21ab (1.23)

2.91ab (1.46)

6.67cc (.49)

2.06aa (1.21)

Person

Note. For columns, means with different superscripts are significantly different in post hoc analysis. For rows, means with different subscripts are significantly different in post hoc analysis (adjustment for multiple comparisons: Bonferroni). Standard deviations appear in parentheses below means.

investment bankers were perceived as more influenced by CNBC than was the public at large. For The Jerry Springer Show, the mean differences between high school dropouts and the public at large tend in the expected direction, but as the tables show, the post hoc analyses did not reveal statistically significant differences between these means. Hence, marginal support was found for H3. Discussion

Taken as a whole, the hypotheses in this study predicted that others can be defined as self-referent, message-referent, or general-referent in nature. Furthermore, the hypotheses predicted that message-referent others would be perceived as most influenced by media content, whereas self-referent others would be perceived as least influenced, and that general-referent others would be assumed to fall somewhere between the two. Taken as a whole, the study’s findings support its hypotheses. Given these findings, it

101

DEFINING THE OTHERS

appears there is a third-person perception continuum. At one end is self as referent and at the other end is message as referent (see Fig. 6.7). This concept of a third-person perception continuum suggests Tversky and Kahneman’s (1982a) notion of conceptual anchors. Third-person perceptions are evaluations made under conditions of uncertainty. Judgments under uncertainty, Tversky and Kahneman argued, can be based on beginning points of comparison or anchors, and judgments are biased in the direction of the anchor. SUMMARY

By definition, the third-person effect argues that self is less influenced than others. If self is used as an anchor to define others, then perceived influence should be relatively small for these others. The present study and many others have found this to be the case. On the other hand, if the message is used as an anchor to define others, then perceived influence should be relatively large for these others, a proposition supported by the study reported here. Applying these arguments to more familiar third-person effect terminology, it is possible that the phenomenon described as the social-distance corollary is an instance of using self as an anchor. Furthermore, it is possible that the concept of perceiving others as likely to be exposed to a message (Eveland, Nathanson, Detenber, & McLeod, 1999) is an instance of using the message as an anchor. This target corollary would also be the case when others are perceived to be a strong normative fit with a particular message (Reid & Hogg, 2005). The concept of anchoring, then, is a possible explanation for a number of third-person effect findings. It suggests a comparatively more elegant explanation for the perception of others in the third-person effect.

7 Systematic Versus Heuristic Processing

Persuasion is an intraperson process prompted by external influences (Perloff, 2003). These influences are created and disseminated as messages by both professional and lay persuaders. The messages, in turn, involve symbolic manipulations and rational appeals that are designed to affect freely chosen attitudes and behavior. Once received, these manipulations and appeals are processed either heuristically or systematically (Chaiken, 1980, 1987; Petty & Cacioppo, 1986). INTRAPERSON PROCESS

As Perloff (2003) pointed out, persuaders really don’t persuade their targets with an overwhelming barrage of verbal and nonverbal information. They influence their targets by providing the reasons1 for yielding to a particular way of thinking. Individuals respond to these efforts by accepting, rejecting, or ignoring what the persuader has to say. “People persuade themselves to change attitudes or behavior. Communicators provide the arguments. They set up the bait. We make change, or refuse to yield” (Perloff, p. 10). The third-person effect, however, is based on the premise that decisions about whether we change or refuse to yield in the face of persuasion do not occur in a vacuum. Rather, we often consider how others respond to the 1

As anyone who has ever seen a television commercial realizes, “reasons” for yielding to a particular way of thinking are not limited to rational appeals. The fact that a drop-dead-gorgeous spokesperson has been employed to help sell a product can also be a “reason” to buy. This same principle applies to a host of other peripheral cues that can be associated with a persuasive message.

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same messages. (If this was not the case, how could fashion designers sell entirely new styles of clothing each year?) Gunther and Storey (2003) relied on this assumption in their arguments for the model of presumed influence, which posits that people “perceive some effect of a message on others and then react to that perception” (p. 199). These researchers described an information campaign that was implemented in an effort to target Nepalese health care workers. The impetus for the campaign was a poor public image of Nepal’s health care system and its service providers. Given the economic conditions in Nepal (the 12th poorest nation in the world at the time of the campaign) and the remoteness of many of its communities, radio provided an efficient means of reaching the target population. The use of radio also meant, of course, that members of other populations, including individuals who would be the clients of the nation’s health care system, would be exposed to the messages. It was expected that the campaign would result in improved interpersonal communication skills among health care workers, which, in turn, would also improve the public image of the overall system. Instead, an indirect effect was found. Gunther and Storey (2003) explained this indirect effect as a five-step process: One, people in the general client population observe and attend to the content of an information campaign, even though they are not part of the target audience. Two, these people anticipate influence of the information campaign on the target audience, the clinic health workers, and a corresponding change in these same health workers. Three, these perceptions of change lead people to develop more positive expectations about the professional qualities of health workers. Four, as a result of these expectations, people form more positive attitudes toward health workers. Finally, more positive attitudes cause the client group to perceive (and perhaps even contribute to) more positive and productive client–health worker interactions and to feel more confident about their own efficacy in dealing with health workers. (pp. 211–212)

This is an illustration of individuals’ persuading themselves. A population that was not among the intended target audience happened to be exposed to the campaign. As a result of this exposure, members of the population persuaded themselves that the health care system in Nepal had improved. This form of intraperson persuasion can include considering and yielding to a wide variety of arguments. Arguments may state that adopting an advocating position will help solve, diminish, or, perhaps, avoid a problem. Radio advertising, for example, often includes not only the benefits of owning products such as a brand new convertible (it will make your neighbors jealous), but also the disadvantages of not owning it (someday you will regret

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passing up this opportunity). Advertisers also go to great lengths to explain how easy it is to purchase their products. Phrases such as “just log on” or “call our 800 number” or “12 months is the same as cash” are all examples of this. Often, advertising attempts to convince consumers that spending money for goods or services is a pleasant experience. A plumbing company advertising its services in Clarksville, Tennessee, for example, not only promises to fix your pipes but also uses a radio jingle that touts plumbers who “smell good and show up on time” (Based on Years of Experience …, 2004). What more could a person ask? As Chen, Duckworth, and Chaiken (1999) explained, the manner in which a persuasive message is processed depends in large part on the receiver’s motivations. These researchers argued that the heuristic-semantic model of persuasion (Chaiken, 1980) accommodates at least three motivations that affect audience members when they encounter persuasive messages. Accuracy as Motivator

Being motivated by a concern for accuracy is an objective approach to persuasion that leads receivers to satisfy themselves that they are in possession of the best information available. Depending on the strength of their desire to be accurate, message receivers will expend more or less cognitive effort in their quest for making a sound decision. As the concern for accuracy increases, so does the amount of cognitive effort one is willing to expend. For example, an individual who believed that deposing Saddam Hussein, the man, was a sufficient rationale for the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003 would hold a lessened concern for the accuracy or completeness (or lack thereof) of intelligence reports stating that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. A different individual, one who believed the rationale for the war in Iraq was ridding the world of a dictator who possessed nuclear arms, would have a greater concern for the accuracy and completeness of these same intelligence reports. Whereas the first person would expend more cognitive effort dealing with information that indicates Saddam was evil, the second person would scrutinize more closely the evidence suggesting Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. Defense as Motivator

When receivers are motivated by defensive needs, they attempt to acquire new information congruent with their already established worldview and beliefs reinforcing self-definition. “Self-definitional beliefs are those closely tied to the self, often involving one’s values, social identities, or personal attributes. Self-motivational perceivers aim to preserve the self-concept and thus process information selectively” (Chen et al., 1999, p. 45).

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Impression as Motivator

One’s immediate social situation also can serve as a motivation for processing information. One may be highly motivated to process information for the sole purpose of impressing others with one’s learned judgment on some issue. Rather than a purely internal impetus, “this selection is directed at satisfying social goals rather than the preservation of self-definitional beliefs” (Chen et al., 1999, p. 46). As these examples indicate, the receiver—not the communicator—dictates the manner in which persuasive information is processed. Varying levels and types of motivation, along with varying levels of ability to cognitively process information within the receiver, explain a majority of the variance in processing modalities. FREELY CHOSEN ATTITUDES AND BELIEFS

Often persuasion will include one or more appeals to symbolism. In Prelude to War, the first installment of the classic Why We Fight series of World War II Army indoctrination films, Capra and Lubitsch (1942) associated the American way of life with virtually every major world religion while showing scenes of Nazi thugs burning synagogues throughout Berlin. Immediately following the terrorist attacks on the United States on September 11, 2001, candidates of all political stripes could be seen sporting American flag lapel pins (as could network news anchors). In the former example, the effort was to transfer the authority and sanction of religious ideals to the American way of life while associating Nazism with the antithesis of these same ideals. In the latter example, the effort is to transfer the authority and sanction of American ideals to individual politicians. Each of these is an attempt to conjure up selected images in the minds of audience members. Audience members, for their part, are free to accept or reject the suggested relationships, or to hold alternate opinions of the symbols themselves. Different from coercion, persuasion occurs when individuals exercise their free will and yield to the merits of a persuasive message. As Petty and Cacioppo’s (1986) elaboration likelihood model explained, the merits of a persuasive message can be evaluated based on two sets of criteria. First, audience members may choose to consider the logical argumentation the persuasive message offers. Offering logic and the weight of available evidence as reasons for believing something or for taking some action would be an appeal to people’s ability and motivation to think about (or elaborate on) what the message has to say. Audience members may also choose to react to what Petty and Cacioppo (1986) defined as noncontent, or “peripheral,” cues. These peripheral cues are less cognitive in nature and depend on people’s learned or natural reac-

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tions to stimuli. For example, people by definition tend to have positive reactions to popular celebrities. Casting one of these celebrities as spokesperson in a TV commercial would be an example of using a peripheral cue to influence consumers. In addition, the script from which the celebrity reads may very well include a number of solid arguments for purchasing the product being promoted. If this occurred, the advertiser would not only be using a positive peripheral cue to influence people, but also would be using a strong rational appeal. In fact, an audience member may choose to first attend to a positive peripheral cue (celebrity spokesperson), react favorably to this cue, and then choose to attend to and elaborate on the logical arguments included in the commercial’s script. This is an example of “set(ting) up the bait” (Perloff, 2003, p. 10). Consider NBC Television’s long-running The More You Know series of public service announcements (NBC, n.d.). The online version of its Reading With Your Kids PSA featured images of actor Benjamin Bratt, Dateline NBC star Ann Curry, and Scrubs star Donald Faison. In addition to these three celebrities, a number of reasons it is good for parents to read to their children were included. Among the reasons offered were that children would gain improved school performance, enhanced opportunities, and expanded economic knowledge. None of the celebrities was presented as being particularly expert in the field of child development. They merely acted as positive peripheral cues to which audience members could respond. It was undoubtedly hoped that audience members would respond by reading, considering, and yielding to the weight of the arguments that reading to one’s children is a good idea. Although the celebrity images were less cognitive in nature, the reasons for reading to children could be elaborated on, analyzed, and evaluated in terms of their strength, logic, and efficacy. CHOOSING BETWEEN HEURISTIC AND SYSTEMATIC PROCESSES

We are free to choose from among all of the information provided in a message, which generally can be described as being appeals to one of two kinds of processes, systematic or heuristic. Systematic processing is the thoughtful consideration of logical argumentation in a persuasive message. Heuristic processing is the natural or learned reaction to stimuli associated with a persuasive message. It also can be the dependence on preestablished decision rules used to make immediate judgments. This two-pronged or “dual-process” (Chen et al., 1999) approach toward communicating with people makes a great deal of sense because of the nature of modern human existence. Often, individuals find they are occupied with the cares of their own lives and simply cannot afford the time necessary to carefully evaluate the merits of a persuasive appeal. At other times, indi-

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viduals find that they are simply overwhelmed by information. Miller (1956) discussed this latter idea in his arguments for the “magical number seven, plus or minus two” (p. 81). He determined that the human mind is capable of simultaneously handling approximately seven bits of information in its short-term memory. This can be applied to an individual trying to evaluate a persuasive message containing a number of logical arguments. Evaluating the acceptability of one such argument consumes two bytes of information storage space. When a message including n individual arguments is evaluated, then, it requires 2n bytes of short-term memory storage space to hold the series of decisions. Hence, a message containing three or more independent arguments would exceed Miller’s magical number seven. Anyone who has ever tried to explain in a research methods class the significance of the statistical fact that the mean of a sampling distribution equals the population parameter has run into Miller’s (1956) magical number seven. A typical explanation of this property goes along the following lines: • If the mean of a sampling distribution is the population parameter, and • if 95% of all observations (survey results) in the sampling distribution are within 1.96 standard errors of the mean, then • we can be 95% sure that a randomly selected observation (a survey result) is within 1.96 standard errors of the population parameter. Passing judgment, one at a time, on these three points is a relatively simple task. Passing judgment on all three at the same time is much more difficult. Even if we have the ability to evaluate persuasive arguments, we may conclude that the topic of a persuasive appeal really isn’t pertinent and/or salient. For example, during the weeks leading up to a presidential election, arguments supporting or attacking a particular candidate may carry great weight with voters—especially if the voters are party loyalists and the attacks are particularly partisan in nature. (Consider the in-group and out-group findings on perceptual discrepancies discussed in chap. 6.) Bright and early on the first Wednesday in November, however, such arguments lose much of their relevance. Thus, it is both a motivation to elaborate and the ability to do so that Petty and Cacioppo (1986) argued are necessary in order for audience members to expend cognitive effort when confronted with a persuasive message. Depending on the audience members’ motivation and/or ability to think, they are more or less likely to take time to actually elaborate on the merits of adopting some advocated position. The higher the levels of motivation and/or ability become, the more likely audience will actually think about the message’s arguments. In the end, if people elaborate, they elaborate. Otherwise, they may respond—either positively or negatively—to the peripheral

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cues associated with the message. To this point, Chen et al. (1999) noted that motivation, as it applies to the persuasion process, is more complex than a simple either/or choice between elaborating and not elaborating. Depending on the type of motivation (e.g., accuracy, defense, or impression) and the strength of that motivation, individuals may either process a persuasive message systematically, heuristically, or both. Heuristic processes are the use of decision rules to make judgments. These decision rules take precedence unless the message receiver has a compelling reason to engage in systematic processes. For example, Cacioppo and Petty’s (1982) need for cognition is defined as one’s proclivity for and enjoyment of thinking. A regular solver of The New York Times Sunday crossword puzzle might fit this definition. Such persons are defined as having an intrinsic motivation for cognitive activity and, therefore, would have a reason to engage in systematic processes. Extrinsic motivations for thinking about persuasive arguments would include the perception that the results of a local community referendum will directly impact one’s neighborhood and personal property values. In such cases, a “potential” voter who might know what the referendum is about transforms himself or herself into a “likely” voter educated on each of the referendum’s paragraphs and subsections. Absent some intrinsic or extrinsic motivation to engage in thoughtful consideration of persuasive arguments, however, people choose to be intellectually lazy, giving only as much thought as necessary to the persuasion they encounter. When their motivations fail to lead them to think, people may choose to rely on one or more heuristics they have developed over time. For example, an individual may know very little about a newly released movie. But he may notice that Tom Hanks is in the leading role and that Steven Spielberg is the director. And, if this person has “never seen a Tom Hanks movie I didn’t like” and believes that “Spielberg has never made a bad movie,” these two simple decision rules may lead the person to buy a ticket and spend two hours sitting in the dark, hot, buttered popcorn and diet cola in hand. SYSTEMATIC AND HEURISTIC PROCESSING IN THE THIRD-PERSON EFFECT

Whether it’s depending on the word of a trusted or admired source, a decision rule, the careful analysis of persuasive arguments, or some combination of these, persuasion necessarily includes the concept of free choice on the part of the audience. Heuristic Processes

The notions of audience members’ persuading themselves and possessing free choice lead to a consideration of systematic and heuristic processing as

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they apply to the third-person effect. Classic models of persuasion such as McGuire’s (1968) matrix include the source, message, channel, and receivers as factors that message senders should take into consideration if they wish to influence their audiences. If message senders can successfully evaluate and use source variables when they construct their persuasive appeals, it shouldn’t be surprising that audience members have a similar ability. That is, sometimes they choose to consider receiver variables as they react to these same persuasive appeals. In fact, research supports this notion. Friestad and Wright (1994) argued that audience members “cope” with “persuasion attempts” on the part of message senders (p. 3). Examining persuasion in the context of marketing, they noted that “consumers’ persuasion coping knowledge enables them to recognize, analyze, interpret, evaluate, and remember persuasion attempts and to select and execute coping tactics believed to be effective and appropriate” (p. 3). We contend that third-person perception is among the coping tactics that message receivers sometimes choose to utilize. Consumers not only play the role of persuasion target, they also take on the role of persuader from time to time (Friestad & Wright, 1994). If this assumption is correct, then audience members would have the wherewithal to understand receiver variables. For example, as television audience members exposed to a commercial from an automaker, consumers are subject to the influence exerted by the persuasive appeal. The communication is one-way in nature, from the advertiser through a chosen media channel to the audience members. In this scenario, the audience members are message receivers and nothing more. Suppose, however, that a member of the audience went to the sales lot to take a closer look at the car and got far enough along in the auto-purchasing process that she found herself negotiating a purchase price with the dealership’s sales manager. This would lead to an episode of give-and-take persuasion attempts, with each side making offers and counteroffers, the potential customer perhaps threatening to walk out of the office, and the sales manager emphasizing how small the monthly payments are. It is in this manner that people’s persuasion coping knowledge involves their own level of knowledge of persuasion as well as their perceptions of how much other people know about the art of persuading. Therefore, the question becomes what process(es) do audience members use when they choose to consider receiver variables? Research has found that systematic processing is related to the strength of evaluations, the strength of attitudes held, and the number of strongly held beliefs about behavior (Griffin, Neuwirth, Giese, & Dunwoody, 2002). Systematic processing also involves thinking about the quality of the argumentation included in persuasive messages. Interestingly, more (versus less) systematic processing does not always lead to positive message evaluations—even for those who, by definition, enjoy systematic processing.

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Defined as one’s proclivity for and enjoyment of thinking, need for cognition is an intrinsic motivation for engaging in central route processing as described by the elaboration likelihood model (Petty & Cacioppo, 1986). Using what they operationalized as weak and strong arguments, Petty and Cacioppo found that individuals high in need for cognition evaluated strong argumentation more positively and that they evaluated weak argumentation more negatively than did individuals low in need for cognition. Additionally, they found individuals high in need for cognition tended to spend more time dealing with weak rather than with strong argumentation. Despite having spent more time with the weak arguments, people high in need for cognition evaluated strong argumentation more highly. On a surface level, this latter finding is somewhat counterintuitive. Those high in need for cognition are defined as being people who enjoy cognitive activities. Given this definition, we might expect that objects prompting individuals to engage in pleasurable activities would receive relatively positive evaluations. This was not the case, however, when high need for cognition individuals were exposed to weak argumentation. Petty and Cacioppo found that people were able to differentiate between their feelings about an activity (thinking) and their evaluations of objects (persuasive messages) that prompted the activity. Findings by Miller and Tesser (1986) help explain this ability. They found that the more people elaborate on an object, the more polarized their opinions of that object become. For example, a Humphrey Bogart fan will have increasingly positive evaluations of the actor the more she watches and analyzes the movie Dark Passage. On the other hand, an individual who considers anything and everything associated with Hollywood to be reprobate will have increasingly negative evaluations the more he is forced to sit though an identical presentation. In a similar manner, a “fan” of thinking will hold a more positive evaluation of well-constructed persuasive argument than of an ill-conceived one—even if the former takes less cognitive activity to figure out than the latter. The elaboration likelihood model is based on the premise that issue involvement as a construct affects message receiver attitudes and behavior very much like need for cognition (Petty & Cacioppo, 1986). That is, the more involving a message topic is to an individual (regardless of level of need for cognition), the greater scrutiny the individual will give to persuasive arguments included with the message. This higher level of message scrutiny will, in turn, lead to polarized evaluations with arguments perceived to be strong receiving relatively high evaluations and arguments perceived to be weak receiving relatively low evaluations. A second question arises, then: Regardless of the context, which process predominates, systematic or heuristic? Tversky and Kahneman (1982b) argued that people tend to make efficient judgments using heuristic processes

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regardless of any proclivity they may have for the thoughtful consideration of a message and its various elements. For example, people believe in the “law of small numbers” (p. 23) and the “gambler’s fallacy” (p. 24). The former causes individuals to incorrectly assume that small samples drawn from a population resemble the characteristics of that population. That this tendency to overgeneralize from samples as small as one exists among average people isn’t overly surprising, but Tversky and Kahneman found that trained statisticians are also prone to make this error in judgment. It’s unlikely that statisticians make this error in their professional roles; if so, they would quickly find themselves in a different profession. It is more likely that the statisticians make this error in their roles as typical people going about their daily lives. The gambler’s fallacy, on the other hand, is the assumption that the laws of chance are fair (Tversky & Kahneman, 1982b). Given information about chance happenings, people tend to believe that occurrences representing outliers of a population will be offset by one or more occurrences which, alone or in combination, are of equal magnitude in the opposite direction. Consider the Tom Hanks fan watching the latest Steven Spielberg film while consuming hot, buttered popcorn and a diet cola. This gambler’s fallacy may help explain such interesting dietary habits. Perhaps it’s a belief that the ill effects of consuming a high-calorie item can be offset by also consuming a no-calorie item. The gambler’s fallacy is the belief that nature will provide the counterbalance. For his part, our movie fan simply provides his own counterbalance. These phenomena are the result of people’s tendency to make judgments based on representativeness (Tversky & Kahneman, 1982b). That is, people use what they perceive to be true about their environment generally to make predictions about what is likely to occur in specific contexts. If we consider this tendency through the lens of attribution theory, it seems that whereas individuals rely on their perceived truths to make evaluations, they assume others do not—the others, therefore, don’t even bother to assess their environments but operate solely on intrinsic, probably heuristic, cues. In terms of representativeness, then, the third-person perception is what people generally believe to be true about their environment. They typically believe that they are less influenced by persuasive communication than are others. Third-person effect literature also indicates, however, that people perceive different levels of influence on others depending on who the others are (chap. 6). The less discernible those others are, the greater the perceptual discrepancy is likely to be. Neither fish nor fowl, then, the public at large is too general in nature to represent or share characteristics with much of anything. This leaves the public, in the mind of the individual estimating the influence of a message on them, with nothing to rely on but heuristic processing.

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Third-person perception is the “rendering (of) social judgments under uncertainty” (Paek et al., 2005, p. 145). Indeed, by definition, it seems to be impossible for individuals to make third-person effect judgments absent some degree of uncertainty. No one can know for sure what others will think or do, no matter how psychologically close they may be. This level of uncertainty would be maximized when an individual is asked to consider other people who are described in terms such as “the public at large.” Along with a lack of information about message effectiveness, the amorphous other forces individuals to utilize “less-than-optimal cognitive strategies, resulting in the [third-person perception]” (Paek et al., p. 144). Courses in psychometric theory are designed to train future researchers in the techniques used to establish the construct validity of measures. If techniques such as factor analysis and causal modeling are required for doctoral students to demonstrate that they are really measuring the attitudes they think they are measuring, how realistic can it be to believe lay persons are able to be sure of what other people are thinking? A further consideration is the understanding that third-person perception is irrational in nature. On a macro level, at least, the notions of third-person perception and the third-person effect are, indeed, irrational. As Tiedge et al. (1991) pointed out, it is logically untenable for everyone to be correct in their belief that others are more influenced by persuasive messages. These judgments under uncertainty, then, are aided by heuristics or decision rules (Tversky & Kahneman, 1982a). In this case, the maximum level of uncertainty (considerations of the generalized public at large) leads to mid-level third-person perceptions. Three explanations exist for the difference between perceived message influence on self and others (Perloff, 1993b). Individuals can overestimate the impact on others, underestimate the impact on self, or both. In making these estimates in situations of particular uncertainty, Perloff suggested, individuals occasionally rely on the heuristic of media effects schema. “These beliefs probably include the notion that televised messages exert strong impacts, that vivid messages are persuasive, that dramatic presentations of a message strongly influence attitudes, and that audience members are gullible and susceptible to persuasion” (p. 177). Such schemas interact with the desire for self-enhancement or the belief that media have no effect on self to create perceptual discrepancies. Each of these concepts is a heuristic. Media effects schemas amount to decision rules that individuals can use—not knowing oneself psychologically is a situation in which individuals make decisions about themselves under conditions of uncertainty. Maintaining a biased view of oneself requires the use of a positive self image as a judgment rule by which information is interpreted. Having examined the perceived impact of negative media content operationalized as rap and heavy metal music, Eveland, Nathanson, Detenber, &

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McLeod (1999) explained their third-person perception findings as the result of differences in perceived likelihood of exposure to media content among various groups of others. Attribution theory suggests that “individuals are aware of negative media content as well as negative social attitudes and behaviors and believe that exposure to negative content leads to negative effects” (p. 297). Therefore, Eveland et al. argued, perceived exposure to negative media content by members of specific groups can lead individuals to support censorship, if not generally, in particular circumstances. Self-categorization provides an alternate explanation for these kinds of findings. Individuals attempt to determine where normative fits lie between themselves, others, and a message, “and the behavior of group members is normatively consistent with those categories” (Reid & Hogg, 2005, p. 131). The notion of normative fit, which is quite similar to Tversky and Kahneman’s (1982a) notion of representativeness, is central to Reid and Hogg’s arguments in favor of the self-categorization explanation for the third-person effect. “Using the fit principle, it is a relatively simple matter to predict when, and to what degree, any given prototype will become a salient basis for self-definition” (Reid & Hogg, p. 132). These definitions are also a type of heuristic. Whether it’s perceived social distance, perceived exposure, attribution theory, or self-categorization, each of the explanations that researchers have offered to account for different levels of perceived influence on various groups of others can be described as an internalized set of judgment rules that people turn to as they undertake the task of estimating message impact on self and other people. These judgment rules are among a host of message variables that receivers may or may not choose to take into consideration when they react to a persuasive appeal. Unlike many message variables, the particular heuristic of others is consistently present. That is, in the case of mass-mediated communication, people are aware that others also are exposed to the communication. Despite its ubiquitous nature, however, it isn’t necessarily the case that every time an individual sees a TV commercial, for example, he or she immediately considers what the rest of the viewers might do. Just as people are capable of ignoring whom the spokesperson is in a commercial, they are also able to overlook the fact that others may be attending to what the message has to say. It is in some contexts and under certain conditions that a consideration of how other people are likely to react becomes salient. One such example occurred in the early 1980s when Cabbage Patch Kids—cuddly, moon-faced dolls—first gained popularity in the United States. Consumers routinely camped outside stores immediately after retail advertisements announced that shipments of the toys would be available when the stores opened their doors the following morning (Nakahara, 1983). These campers, of course, were reacting to their perceptions of what

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other shoppers would do when they heard the news. And the campers were right. Newspaper accounts (e.g., Nakahara) described near-riots that took place in trendy shopping malls during the season of peace, love, and good tidings. Such displays, of course, do not occur all the time. More often than not, retail advertising leads to a ho-hum response from consumers who choose to ignore the fact that other shoppers also are targets of the promotional campaign. Given the available evidence, it appears that the perceptual component of the third-person effect is a heuristic process that message receivers can choose to employ as they react to persuasive appeals. Depending on the context of the persuasion attempt, the salience of what other people think, and/or the pertinence of what other people think, third-person perception may factor into how an individual chooses to react to the persuasive appeal himself or herself. Systematic Processes

If the perceptual component of the third-person effect is a heuristic process, then what of the behavioral component? Is it the result of heuristic or systematic processing? Is the perceptual component a peripheral cue that can act as a motivation for central route processing that then leads to enduring attitude change and behavior modification? If, for example, the perceptual component involves heuristic processing and the behavioral component is the result of systematic processing, do individuals engage in both processes simultaneously? A better way of approaching these questions is to examine them in the light of well-established and generally accepted models of persuasion. Whatever the third-person effect is, if it is to become part of the existing persuasion literature, it must be compatible with what is already known to be true about the persuasion process. Both the heuristic model of persuasion (Chaiken, Liberman, & Eagly, 1989) and the elaboration likelihood model (Petty & Cacioppo, 1986) posit that enduring attitude change and any resulting impact on behavior are the result of systematic processing. Petty and Cacioppo argued that an elaboration continuum describes the level and degree of systematic processing in which an individual engages: “When conditions foster people’s motivation and ability to engage in issue-relevant thinking, the ‘elaboration likelihood’ is said to be high. This means that people are likely to attend to the appeal; attempt to access relevant information from both external and internal sources; scrutinize and make inferences about the message arguments in light of any other pertinent information available; draw conclusions about the merits of the arguments for the recommendation based upon the analysis; and consequently derive an overall evaluation of,

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or attitude toward, the recommendation” (Petty & Cacioppo, p. 7; emphasis added). Among the externally available and additional pertinent information is an individual’s perception of what other people are likely to do when they receive the same message. Although individuals have the potential to consider what other people may do regardless of the persuasion context, third-person effect research indicates that different sources and message types elicit different levels of third-person perception. For example, research finds third-person perception is stronger for violent and misogynist content than it is for controversial news issues (see chap. 3). Message variables such as topic can trigger systematic or heuristic processing, and they can tap into thoughts about likelihood of exposure to others, which influences their estimations of message effects on others. Finally, “variables affecting message processing in a relatively biased manner can produce either a positive or negative motivational and/or ability bias to the issue-relevant thoughts attempted” (Petty & Cacioppo, 1986, p. 19). Construed in this manner, it is not surprising that message types produce perceptual discrepancies of widely disparate magnitudes. Chen et al. (1999) made similar assertions when they argued that three motivations spur individuals as they process persuasive information. A need for accuracy would lead to objective processing of information. Defensive needs—the desire to maintain one’s self-concept—on the other hand, would lead to biased (in favor of self) processing. Impression motivation, the desire to be viewed positively by others in various social situations, would lead to biased processing dictated by the social context. Objective processing, according to Petty and Cacioppo (1986), is “bottom-up” cognition in which one gathers data and reaches a conclusion using inductive reasoning as a paradigm. Biased processing is “top-down” cognition in which support for an already-adopted conclusion is sought out. These foregone conclusions serve as decision rules or heuristics that guide message processing. The objective, bottom-up process, conversely, lacks any such decision rule and would be more likely to result in systematic processing. Research, then, indicates that what an individual does with the information he gathers from a persuasive message, along with any additional information that comes from extra-message sources, depends in large part on what motivates him. A stock trader, for example, would be motivated by a need for accuracy when reading persuasive information about a new stock offering (IPO). In addition to considering the relevant IPO information, this trader also would consider what other traders are likely to do when they become aware of the same information. Persuasion theory indicates that in this third-person effect context, the stock trader would engage in systematic processing of all the available information and then base her behavior (either invest now or wait and perhaps invest at another time) on her conclusions.

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A different individual, one who is motivated by a need for preserving his self-concept, would be more likely to engage in heuristic processing. A proud, life-long Democrat, on encountering a political message obviously sponsored by the Republican National Committee, might well conclude that Republican voters would be much more influenced by this message than he would be. Regardless of the actual details of the message, it would be impossible for the Democrat to maintain his self-concept without believing Republicans to be more affected. Although the Democrat may have reached an accurate conclusion, persuasion theory indicates that in this third-person effect context, the individual would be engaging in a heuristic process. Finally, a third individual, one who is motivated by the impression she may leave with her new acquaintances, also would be likely to engage in heuristic processing. As the receiver of information from her new friends, she would regulate her verbal and nonverbal responses predicated on her preconceived beliefs of what would allow her to fit into the group most effectively. As a sender of information, she would regulate herself in a manner reminiscent of spiral of silence literature (Noelle-Neumann, 1973, 1980). Indeed, research has found support for an inherent connection between the third-person effect and the spiral of silence in affecting public opinion (Willnat, 1996)—on a much larger scale than our individual and her new friends. Dual-process models of persuasion predict that attitudinal changes resulting from systematic processing “will show greater temporal persistence, greater prediction of behavior, and greater resistance to counterpersuasion than attitude changes that result mostly from (heuristic processing)” (Petty & Cacioppo, 1986, p. 21). Given the concepts discussed in this chapter, it follows that to the extent that the behavioral component of the third-person effect is realized, it is the result of systematic processing rather than heuristic processing. And, given the nature of third-person perception—a heuristic process—realization of the behavioral component of the third-person effect will be relatively rare as compared to the perceptual component. In other words, it is not only the case that the perceptual component is a necessary but insufficient condition for the behavioral component, it is also the case that the simultaneous utilization of both heuristic and systematic processes is necessary. Although scores of studies have found statistical support for the perceptual component of the third-person effect, a relatively small number of studies have been published demonstrating support for the behavioral component. That the perceptual component of the third-person effect has been found to be a robust phenomenon (Paul, Salwen, & DuPagne, 1999), whereas the behavioral component remains a relatively elusive target, supports the notion that one is the result of simple heuristic processing and the other is the result of more effortful systematic processing.

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SUMMARY

Neuwirth, Frederick, and Mayo (2002) argued that it is useful to employ the “measures of information processing modalities” (p. 347) included in the heuristic-systematic model (Eagly & Chaiken, 1993) when examining the third-person effect. A major contention that we are putting forth is that the third-person effect is a unique context in which persuasion occurs. Given this assertion, we agree with Neuwirth et al. If the third-person effect is, indeed, part of what is generally known about persuasion, then it should mesh with existing persuasion theories. Dual-process theories such as the elaboration likelihood model and the heuristic-systematic model are prominent among contemporary persuasion literature. Research indicates that the perceptual component of the third-person effect tends to display the characteristics of heuristic processing. When it has been found to occur, the behavioral component of the third-person effect appears to bear the markers of processing that is more systematic in nature. Researchers have been perplexed by the seeming abundance of evidence for the perceptual component of the third-person effect coupled with the seeming paucity of evidence supporting the behavioral component. Correlation, of course, is not causation, but it is interesting to note that in more general persuasion contexts heuristic processing, which appears to be associated with the perceptual component, occurs more often than systematic processing, which appears to be associated with the behavioral component. It may be that the degree to which third-person perception affects people’s behavior is a function of the time they use and effort they expend to elaborate on the significance of their third-person perceptions.

8 Understanding the Third-Person Effect as a Special Context for Persuasion

At the heart of Davison’s (1983) third-person effect hypothesis is the notion of self–other comparisons. Third-person effect researchers—Perloff (1999), for example—have described the motivation for making these self–other comparisons as a desire for self-enhancement. That is, scholars have found that people, in general, like to feel good about themselves. As social creatures, one of the ways we can engage in self-enhancement is by creating favorable comparisons with the people around us. Self-enhancement can be achieved in a number of ways. One could raise estimates of self, lower estimates of others, or combine the two, raising self-estimates while lowering estimates of others. Regardless of the process used to create self–other comparisons, a desire for self-enhancement is one of the primary motivations for engaging in the third-person effect, which ultimately leads to perceptual discrepancies. THREE THIRD-PERSON EFFECT PROCESSES

An entirely different set of concepts from the motivations for engaging in third-person perception are the processes that people employ when making these self–other comparisons. Among these proposed processes is self-categorization, which Reid and Hogg (2005) described as the phenomenon in 118

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which “people internalize categories that are accessible to them personally, especially when that category is cognitively present in the social environment, and the behavior of group members is normatively consistent with those categories” (p. 131). The more media content is seen as being a “normative fit” (p. 131) for one’s in-group, the content is more likely perceived as influencing self rather than others. This would be a first-person perception. The more media content is seen as being a normative fit for an out-group, the more likely it is perceived as influencing others rather than self, a third-person perception. One could extend this notion to the total social environment. Doing so would lead to the following argument: As people perceive an increasingly large number of groups in their social environment, self–other comparisons become shades of grey rather than a simple in-group/out-group dichotomy. In other words, groups would fall along a continuum. At one end of the continuum would be a group for which self is the prototypical member. At the other end of the continuum would be another group for which self is the antiprototypical member. With this latter group, self would share no characteristics at all. Forms of media content, in turn, would be perceived as being more or less normative fits with the groups falling along the continuum. As shown in Figure 8.1, first- versus third-person perceptions would manifest as a matter of relative likelihoods falling on continua in two dimensions. Variables under consideration are characteristics of self, characteristics of others, and characteristics of the message. Depending on the combination of normative fits among these variables, first-person, third-person, or null effects would result. Marines and college professors illustrate this point. A Marine Corps drill instructor would most likely perceive himself as a prototypical member of the Marines. On the other hand, this drill instructor would consider himself an extremely poor normative fit for the group of individuals defined as tenured faculty at the University of California–Berkeley. In a similar manner, a political science professor at Berkeley would most likely perceive herself as a prototypical member of her university’s faculty but a poor normative fit for the group of individuals defined as Marine Corps drill instructors. Between these extremes are countless groups of other people. Groups defined as enlisted personnel serving in the Air Force, Army, and Navy are examples. Groups defined as faculty teaching at universities located in the Midwest and Southeast are other examples. Although the drill instructor may not be a prototypical airman, soldier, or sailor, he is still a fairly strong normative fit for each of these groups. Although the Berkeley professor may not be the prototypical member of other universities’ faculty, she is still a fairly strong normative fit for each of these groups. Thus, the drill instructor would perceive influence on the self when considering messages that are normative fits for not only the Marines, but

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Figure 8.1. Self-categorization process. Note: Self-categorization explains perceived media influence in two dimensions. In the first dimension, groups are defined as being strong to weak normative fits with the self. In the second dimension, forms of media content are perceived as strong to weak normative fits with the different groups. Depending on its normative fit, a particular media message is perceived to influence some groups more than others. Depending on the normative fit of self to the group, a first- or third-person effect emerges.

also for the Air Force, Army, and Navy. A political science professor may well perceive self-influence if she were to encounter messages that are also normative fits for faculty at universities located in Illinois and Georgia. For example, maintenance of equipment and keeping accurate records of completed maintenance are a significant part of military professionalism. A persuasive message highlighting the problems associated with falsifying maintenance records would likely influence the drill instructor even if the message were couched in terms of keeping accurate records for the upkeep of Air Force bombers. An important part of academic professionalism is a concern for plagiarism. It’s likely that a message discussing the problems associated with plagiarism would influence the Berkeley professor even if the message were couched in terms of cheating that occurs at universities on the East Coast. Plagiarism in academics and falsifying maintenance records for military aircraft are manifestations of the same ethical shortcoming. Each is a form of

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lying. Furthermore, these activities are considered to be major violations of their respective institutions’ codes of conduct. Despite this, the Marine drill instructor would likely perceive little self-influence from the plagiarism message and the professor little self-influence from the maintenance records message. Whether a first- or third-person perception emerges depends on a combination of the message and the comparison group of others. A message perceived as a normative fit with the Navy, for example, would lead to a firstperson perception for the Marine if the comparison others were Berkeley professors. The Marine would likely perceive a third-person perception, however, if the comparison others were sailors. In a similar manner, a message targeting faculty teaching in Georgia would lead to a first-person perception for the Berkeley professor if the comparison others were Marine drill instructors. If the comparison others were University of Georgia professors, on the other hand, a third-person perception would be more likely. Considering the wide array of cultural diversity, a reasonable hypothesis to advance would be that people are able to identify more out-groups than in-groups. Also, individuals perceive a larger number of messages to be normative fits for out-groups than in-groups, in large part because a pluralistic society comprises far more out-groups for any individual than in-groups. Hence, a larger number of communication contexts would lead to third-person perceptions than first-person perceptions. Likelihood of Exposure

A few years before self-categorization was proposed, Eveland, Nathanson, Detenber, and McLeod (1999) argued that perceived likelihood of exposure to media content is a predictor of first- and third-person effects. The findings of this study, along with those of at least one other (McLeod, Eveland, & Nathanson, 1997), suggest that perceptions of media influence are “based on inferences about the likelihood and/or frequency” (Eveland et al., p. 290) of exposure to media content. As Eveland et al. noted, in order for estimates of exposure likelihood to be made, the people in question (both self and others) must be members of discernible groups. The rationale here is that people have a tendency to perceive different groups as being more or less likely to come into contact with media content. Media habits, the content of individual media messages, and the characteristics of the groups under consideration all would combine to create the perception that some groups are more likely exposed whereas others are less likely exposed. Perceptions of media influence are then based on a “naïve theory” (Eveland et al., 1999, p. 290) of communication effects, that mere media exposure has a direct and powerful impact on people’s behavior. Therefore, the more likely a group is perceived to come into contact with

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some form of media content, the more likely that group is perceived to be influenced by the media content. Interestingly, the notion of normative fit as suggested by the self-categorization hypothesis meshes well with the Eveland et al. (1999) concept of perceived likelihood of exposure. In the latter case, groups of people are described as falling along a continuum. This time, however, the continuum is defined as perceived likelihood of exposure, with little likelihood at one end and great likelihood at the other. Figure 8.2 illustrates this relationship. The drill instructor, asked to consider the impact of a piece of neo-Marxist literature, would, according to this view, perceive little likelihood of exposure on the part of fellow Marines, but an extreme likelihood of exposure on the part of Berkeley’s political science professors. Consequently, the drill instructor may ascribe to the neo-Marxist literature little influence on fellow Marines and a great deal of influence on Berkeley professors. Researchers proposing perceived likelihood of exposure as an explanation for the third-person effect process have predominantly looked at negative media content—violent heavy metal lyrics, rap lyrics promoting misogyny, and violent movies, for example. Groups of other people were perceived

Figure 8.2. Perceived likelihood of exposure. Note: Groups of individuals fall along a continuum. At one end of the continuum, groups are defined as having little likelihood of exposure to media content. At the other end, groups are defined as having a great likelihood of exposure. The weight of the arrows indicates perceived media impact on the groups, with heavier arrows indicating greater perceived impact.

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as more likely exposed to these forms of media content than was self. Were the media content more prosocial in nature, a reasonable hypothesis would be that the self would be perceived as more likely exposed to this form of media content and, therefore, more influenced. Exposure likelihood is a different concept from the aforementioned self-categorization. Be that as it may, one can reasonably argue that as the normative fit of a media message increases, so does a group’s perceived likelihood of exposure to that message. Social Distance

Among the first attempts to describe self–other comparisons was the socialdistance corollary introduced by Cohen, Mutz, Price, and Gunther (1988). The thesis here is that as comparison others are defined in increasingly general terms, the discrepancy between perceived media influence on self and others increases. That is, when negative media content is under consideration, the self is perceived as being least influenced. Groups of people sharing attributes with the self are perceived as somewhat more influenced. Groups sharing fewer attributes with the self are perceived as increasingly more influenced. Finally, as Figure 8.3 indicates, groups defined in general terms such as “the public at large” are perceived to be most influenced. Once again, suppose the drill instructor were asked to consider the impact of a piece of neo-Marxist literature, but this time the comparison others were a succession of other Marines, other veterans, others who are not veterans, and the public at large. The social-distance corollary predicts that the drill instructor would perceive the least influence on himself and other Marines, somewhat greater influence on other veterans, greater influence on nonveterans, and the greatest influence on the public at large. COORIENTATION

Together, the concepts of social distance, likelihood of exposure, and self-categorization lead to a number of conclusions. First, as the social-distance corollary suggests, when the perceived difference between self and others increases, so does the perceived likelihood of media influence on others. Second, as likelihood of exposure suggests, one of the variables used to evaluate the difference between self and others is the perceived relationship each has with particular forms of media content. And, third, as self-categorization suggests, people tend to use prototypes, either real or imagined, to define comparison others. If one considers media content to be an “object” and self versus prototypical other to be a dyad, the coorientation model (Chaffee & McLeod, 1968) comes to mind. As shown in Figure 8.4, the conceptual model of coorientation (McLeod & Chaffee, 1973) posits that Person A (whom McLeod & Chaffee called

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Figure 8.3. Social distance in third-person perceptions. Note: Self and others fall along a continuum. At one end of the continuum is self. At the other end are general others. Between the endpoints, others are defined as progressively more general in nature. The weight of the arrows indicates perceived media impact on the groups, with heavier arrows indicating greater perceived impact.

Sam) thinks about and evaluates an object (O1). This object does not exist in an intellectual vacuum for Sam. Its attributes are evaluated in relation to an entire set of other objects (On) that are related to it. Depending on the attributes of the set of other objects that he chooses to think about, O1 may be more or less favorably evaluated by Sam. In a manner dictated by this structure and this process, Sam creates a set of cognitions about the object. For example, if Sam were in the market to buy a new car, he might have been giving serious consideration to the object “Sport Utility Vehicle.” If he were to also think about the attributes of gas mileage and greenhouse emissions, Sam’s evaluation of SUVs would be somewhat negative. If, on the other hand, Sam were to think about load capacity and a sense of personal safety, his evaluation would be more positive. The SUV is the same object in either case. What varied between the two cases were the attributes that Sam chose to consider. After this fashion, coorientation models a dyad. So, Sam not only has cognitions about the object but also about Person B (Judy), the other half of

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the dyad. Sam knows what he thinks about the object. Sam also knows what he thinks about Judy. Cognitions about Judy are created much as they are about the object. Sam has had experiences with Judy, and Sam can consider Judy’s attributes against a backdrop of attributes held by other people Sam has encountered. Based on the cognitions Sam forms about the object and his cognitions about Judy, Sam holds perceptions of Judy’s cognitions about the object. Predicated on the same antecedents, Sam also develops perceptions of Judy’s cognitions about him. Because it is a dyad that is under consideration, the structure, processes, and variable types also are applicable to Judy as she views the social situation from her perspective. She, of course, would have

Figure 8.4. The conceptual model of coorientation. Note: Person A’s subjective view of social reality: Solid lines indicate Person A’s thoughts about the object (O1) and Person A’s thoughts about Person B. Dashed lines indicate Person A’s perceptions of the thoughts Person B holds about the object and about Person A. The object being evaluated is judged in relation to other similar objects (On). The letters a and b represent the attributes by which O1 is evaluated. Person B’s subjective view of this social reality would be similar to Person A’s, but with the solid and dotted arrows replacing one another. An objective observer’s view of this social reality would be represented by solid and dotted arrows going to and from both Person A and Person B. (Adapted from McLeod & Chaffee, 1973.)

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her own cognitions about the object and about Sam. Furthermore, she would hold perceptions about Sam’s cognitions about the object and herself. Hence, coorientation models dyads in which social realities are the result of extrapolations from communication. The goal of the communication is to increase understanding of the other person’s cognitions and to increase agreement between the two people involved. The coorientation model suggests that an increase in understanding is a more likely outcome than is an increase in agreement. The cliché “we agree to disagree” does a good job of expressing what the coorientation model predicts is the most likely outcome of this communication process. An important aspect of the coorientation model is that the two people involved are motivated to communicate with one another. Reaching some level of understanding/agreement is the means. Defining one’s social reality by reaching understanding/agreement is the end. Thus, in coorientation, exchange of information leads to understanding/agreement, which leads to defining one’s social reality. For example, Sam may choose to evaluate SUVs based on their load capacity and the sense of security that they give him as a driver. Judy, on the other hand, may choose to evaluate SUVs based on their gas mileage and greenhouse gas emissions. Successful communication according to coorientation may not lead to agreement between Sam and Judy, but it will define the dyad’s social reality in terms of understanding one another vis-à-vis sport utility vehicles. Although the original coorientation model focused on dyads engaging in interpersonal communication, it was not long before researchers applied these same ideas to social groups. For example, Grunig and Stamm (1973) applied these ideas to collectives of people. One collective—a corporation, perhaps—may be motivated to coorient itself with various collectives or “publics.” Through the use of public relations techniques, the corporation may communicate with and encourage its publics of interest to offer feedback. Often the objective is to increase understanding of the corporation’s public position on some issue that is important to all involved. The normative two-way symmetric model of public relations discussed by Grunig and Hunt (1984) illustrates these relationships. In it, two collectives play the roles of Persons A and B. In the case of the two-way symmetric model of public relations, the modes of communication often are mass mediated rather than interpersonal. Whether it is dyads of individuals under consideration or dyads of collectives, the coorientation model depends heavily on the notion that people are inclined to make self–other comparisons. Furthermore, the model is based on the proposition that people tend to use these self–other comparisons as a guide, often inaccurate as it may be, to their future behavior. As McLeod and Chaffee (1973) explained, “It is an unhappy commentary on the inadequacy of the human communication process that our perceptions of other people’s cognitions are seldom accurate beyond chance, or beyond

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the level of accuracy that would be obtained had (person) A projected his views onto (person) B” (p. 482). In introducing their notion of the coorientation model, McLeod and Chaffee (1973) stated, “The key assumption underlying this approach is that a person’s behavior is not based simply upon his private cognitive construction of the world; it is also a function of his perception [emphasis in original] of the orientations held by others around him and of his orientation to them. A further assumption is that, under certain conditions of interaction, the actual cognitions and perceptions of others will also affect his behavior” (emphasis added; p. 470). A THIRD-PERSON EFFECT APPLICATION

Davison’s (1983) third-person effect hypothesis identifies one of McLeod and Chaffee’s (1973) conditions of interaction. Of course, the hypothesis states that individuals exposed to a message will perceive that others are more influenced than 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” (Davison, p. 3; emphasis added). The original articulation of the third-person effect hypothesis (Davison, 1983) also involved dyads and self–other comparisons. In fact, it combined dyads of individuals with dyads of collectives. The relevance of dyads consisting of individuals is illustrated by conversations Davison told of having with journalists about the persuasive impact of editorials. Having estimated ordinary readers as easily influenced, the journalists expressed that they perceived themselves as superior—at least in terms of their resistance to editorials. This suggests that we tend to form conceptualizations of our identities partly from comparisons with others. It also suggests that we like to have company when we do it.1 In Davison’s (1983) journalistic dyad, a cherished self is maintained by assuming a perfect state of understanding and agreement about the merits of newspaper editorials. The perception of a perfect state of understanding/agreement is achieved by person A’s (the journalist) projecting his beliefs onto person B (Davison himself in his example). In this dyad, the journalist claimed Davison as something of an alter ego—at least when the two are considering the object “newspaper editorials.” It isn’t necessary for the journalist to be accurate or for Davison even to exist at all. All that is really necessary is for the journalist to be secure in the belief that there are 1

In laying the groundwork for coorientation, McLeod and Chaffee (1973) cited Sullivan (1938), stating, “Psychiatry must be concerned with the processes by which we come to possess a self that is esteemed and cherished; further, this self ‘has been acquired in the life of the person chiefly by communication with others’” (p. 474).

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Davisons somewhere who evaluate newspaper editorials in very nearly the same manner as the journalist does. This security, which is achieved by establishing a cherished self, allows the journalist to next function in a dyad of collectives. In this dyad, the journalist forms a collective with Davison. As a member of this collective, the journalist is able to make self–other comparisons with other people who form the second collective. These others would be the ordinary readers to whom the journalist referred. Before, the journalist assumed a perfect state of understanding/agreement with Davison. This time around, however, the journalist assumes a perfect state of understanding regarding his and Davison’s evaluation of the editorials, combined with the assumption on both the journalist’s and Davison’s part that others will evaluate newspaper editorials differently. Believing that understanding and agreement with Davison have been achieved, the journalist has no real motivation to reach an agreement with those others, whom he perceives are perfectly understood. In fact, there is a disincentive for the journalist to reach an agreement with those others. If the journalist did agree with the others, one of two things would follow. Either the journalist would be nothing more than an ordinary reader of editorials, or the others would join the ranks of the extraordinary. Either way, the journalist’s cherished self would be compromised by this state of understanding and agreement with the others. This is the point at which the third-person effect and coorientation diverge. The journalist does have a motivation to anticipate and react to how others will behave as a result of exposure to the newspaper editorials, which they (the others) have evaluated in their ordinary manner. As Davison (1983) explained, “It has been called the ‘third-person effect’ because third persons are involved from two different observational standpoints” (p. 3). With the advantage of hindsight and later published research, we disagree with Davison’s initial proposition, which implies that the greatest perceived impact will always be applicable only to others (a point we addressed in chap. 5). We do agree, however, with the latter part of his statement that, in general, people are concerned with the attitudes and behavior of an ostensible audience when some form of persuasive communication has been encountered. THE DUAL-PERSPECTIVE MODEL OF PERSUASION

Based on the similarities and differences among third-person effects, coorientation, and persuasion theories, a dual-perspective model of persuasion is illustrated in Figure 8.5. Here, the object under consideration is a persuasive message received by a mass audience. From his or her own perspective, each individual in this mass audience is “self.” For explanation’s sake, we use Judy from the SUV example as our “self.” Judy evaluates the persuasive message

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Figure 8.5. The dual-perspective model of persuasion. Note: Perceptions of the persuasive situation: Bold solid arrows indicate Self’s direct perspective of the persuasive message (P1), message Source, and Others. Dashed arrows indicate Self’s meta-perspective of Others’ attitudes toward P1, Others’ attitude toward the message Source, and Others’ reaction (Rps) to the persuasion attempt. The dotted arrow indicates the Self’s third-person effect response (TPE-R) to Rps. Light solid arrows indicate the Source’s presentation of the message (P1) and projected attitude toward Self and Others. The persuasive message being evaluated is judged in relation to other similar messages (Pn).

based on a subset of its attributes salient and/or pertinent to her. The result of Judy’s evaluation is a set of cognitions that she holds about the message. In other words, Judy may or may not be favorably impressed by the message and/or the source from which it comes. She, therefore, may or may not be persuaded. The model also shows that, against this backdrop, Judy evaluates others whom she believes have encountered the message. In coorientation, dyads already exist when an object is encountered. Here, ad hoc, almost mythical dyads are created when a persuasive message is encountered. So, in the effort to preserve her cherished self, Judy not only considers her direct perspective of the persuasive message and/or source, she also considers her meta-perspective of others and their direct perspectives.

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In explicating the coorientation model, McLeod and Chaffee (1973) described the notions of “direct perspective” (p. 476) and “meta-perspective” (p. 476) discussed by Laing, Phillipson, and Lee (1966). In our example, the direct perspective is what Judy thinks about the persuasive message and/or source. The meta-perspective is what Judy thinks other people think about the message and/or source. Together, Judy’s direct and meta-perspectives lead her to react to the situation in some way. Her reaction may be to reinforce her already-held beliefs about herself and others; her reaction may be a change of attitude in the direction of (or counter to) the arguments made in the persuasive message; her reaction may take the form of some overt behavior; or her reaction may be some combination of these. If Judy’s direct perspective results in positive cognitions about the persuasive message—that the message, for example, has the attributes of offering strong, reasonable arguments for buying a car—she may do the “smart” thing. Doing the smart thing in our example might be taking advantage of “factory cash and 0.0% financing.” In other words, Judy may decide to, and may actually, buy a new car at a bargain price. If, on the other hand, Judy’s direct perspective leads to negative cognitions about the persuasive message, that the message has the attributes of weak, inarticulate arguments for buying a car, she may enhance her cherished self by turning to her meta-perspective of other people. For example, on encountering the persuasive message, Judy may have noted that the auto manufacturer has engaged a famous professional tennis player to act as corporate spokesperson. She may also have noted that it appears to be a major campaign, which is even receiving some attention from the mainstream news media. Judy also realizes tennis players don’t necessarily know anything about automotive engineering. Furthermore, she knows there are people who do respond to celebrity. Judy isn’t among them, but they are out there. Because of how Judy evaluates the persuasive message, of how she perceives others will evaluate the message, and Judy’s own tendency to enhance her cherished self, she perceives in others a heightened likelihood of new automobile purchases. In turn, Judy may see an investment opportunity. She does not purchase a new car, but, instead, she may decide to invest $25,000 buying shares of the auto manufacturer’s stock. This would be an example of the original notion of the third-person effect. Direct Perspective Versus Meta-Perspective Self. This is a dual-perspective model of persuasion because, from Judy’s standpoint, her direct and meta-perspectives influence her ultimate behavior. When her direct perspective of the persuasive message and/or source lead to positive evaluations, she is relatively likely to become persuaded that the advocated behavior is a good idea. If she becomes so per-

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suaded, Judy may actually engage in the advocated behavior without any regard to how others will react, she may perceive a first-person perception, she may engage in the advocated behavior while maintaining a first-person perception, or she may do nothing at all. When her direct perspective leads to negative evaluations, however, Judy’s meta-perspective of others can influence her ultimate behavior. Were this to occur, the third-person effect hypothesis predicts that Judy would perceive greater persuasive influence on others than on herself. Based on her conclusions of what others are likely to do, Judy may behave in some manner that allows her to take advantage of an opportunity she perceives, may behave in a manner that protects her from some threat that she perceives, or may take no action at all. Which of Judy’s perspectives predominates depends on the message’s characteristics (chap. 3), the characteristics of the message source (chap. 4), and Judy’s reaction to them. If her meta-perspective predominates, then Judy’s personal characteristics (chap. 2) interacting with the characteristics of the comparison others (chap. 6) will determine her response. Self’s dual-perspective deliberations also apply to the elaboration likelihood model (Petty & Cacioppo, 1986), which argues that the probability of “issue-relevant elaboration” (p. 5) on the content of a persuasive message depends on the message receiver’s (self) motivation and/or ability to do so. Otherwise, message receivers become more likely to react without much elaboration to variables, such as comparison others, peripheral to the message’s central arguments. As Figure 8.6 indicates, however, the third-person effect hypothesis suggests that self can become motivated not only to elaborate on message arguments, but he or she may be motivated to elaborate on other people and their possible elaborations on the message arguments (chap. 7). Furthermore, as Figure 8.7 shows, the likelihood of this meta-perspective elaboration is con-

Figure 8.6. Dual motivations in message processing.

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Figure 8.7. Ability to engage in meta-perspective elaboration by comparison other.

tingent on self’s ability to make informed comparisons with these other people. As discussed in chapter 6, self has relatively little ability to make comparisons with generalized others often referred to as “the public at large” but relatively greater ability to elaborate on others as they become more closely anchored to self or to the message. This form of meta-perspective elaboration suggests a meta-perspective central route in the elaboration likelihood model. Source. This also is a dual-perspective model of persuasion because, as Davison (1983) pointed out, the third-person effect hypothesis involves not only the point of view of an individual message receiver (self) but also the point of view of the message source. Sources are able to influence audience members via either the audience members’ direct perspectives or meta-perspectives. Traditional models of persuasion outline methods of persuasion using receivers’ direct perspectives. (See Perloff, 2003, for an overview of contemporary persuasion theory.) Understanding the third-person effect hypothesis as a nontraditional (or special) context for persuasion, however, affords persuaders an additional means of achieving their ends—influencing their audiences. Traditional models of persuasion such as McGuire’s (1968) matrix of persuasive communication presume that would-be persuaders are able to manipulate the messages they disseminate, choose the channels of communication they use, and select their message sources (i.e., using expert, celebrity, likeable, etc., spokespersons and endorsers). As these traditional models of persuasion also note, however, persuaders are not able to manipulate their audiences. Message receivers simply are the way they are; it is the job of the persuader to reach them. Although persuaders cannot manipulate their audiences, the third-person effect hypothesis does point out that persuaders can manipulate ostensible audiences. Early in his administration, President Ronald Reagan was able to effectively use this technique. The Republican president appeared to ap-

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peal directly to the American public during his budget negotiations with the Democratic majorities in the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives (Dewar, 1981; Smith, 1983). As journalists reported at the time, “All of this has the effect of increasing the power of the president, at least when a congressional majority perceives that he has the public behind him and the will to go over congress’s head, if necessary, to stir up public pressure for his program. In the case of Reagan, many Democrats concede this is the case” (Dewar, 1981, p. A1). President Reagan, using his “aw, shucks” style of public discourse, was able to convince a Congress controlled by the opposition party that it was in their best interest to go along with his proposed budget proposals. He did this by manipulating the ostensible audience. Even if a persuader doesn’t choose to target the ostensible audience of a persuasive message, an understanding of the third-person effect dynamics involved in the overall persuasion process can improve one’s chances for success. For example, President George W. Bush appeared to make this point during a news conference marking the third anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003. Responding to a question about a constant stream of bad news coming from Baghdad and its surrounding provinces, President Bush said such questions exemplify “precisely what the enemy understands is possible …. [I]t also is a realistic assessment of the enemy’s capability to affect the debate, and they know that. They’re capable of blowing up innocent life so it ends up on your TV show …. And I can understand how Americans are worried about whether or not we can win” (Bush, 2006). In this exchange, the president expressed his concern that Iraqi insurgents were committing acts of terror as a form of communication. In the president’s view, the channel of communication was the American news media covering the war, and the ostensible audience was the American public. The insurgents’ goal was to influence the administration’s war policy by going over the head of the president directly to the American public through the news media. For his part, the president explained that he understood how this system of communication works. Becoming Persuaded Versus Being Influenced

Furthermore, this dual-perspective model of persuasion is applicable because, as Perloff (2003) concluded, people persuade themselves while, as Eveland et al. (1999) noted, these same people tend to believe that others are influenced beyond their ability to resist. “One of the great myths of persuasion is that persuaders convince us to do things we really don’t want to do. They supposedly overwhelm us with so many arguments or such verbal ammunition that we acquiesce. They force us to give in” (Perloff, p. 10). In reality, individuals become persuaded by considering the information that persuaders provide. If the information is convincing, then individuals be-

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come persuaded through a systematic evaluation process. If the information is not, they aren’t persuaded. Despite this evidence of how people become persuaded through their direct perspective encounters with media content, Eveland et al. (1999) contended that, when considering media influence on others (meta-perspective), “people hold a schema for mass media influence that is much like that held in what has been called the ‘magic bullet’ era of media effects” (p. 297). They argued that people accept the heuristic judgment rule that others are directly affected by media content. In other words, when they think about themselves, people have a tendency to realize that “I” become persuaded. When considering others, however, people have a tendency to believe “they” are influenced. Connotations of the former are clearly more desirable because persuasion implies some degree of thought, whereas influence suggests gullibility. SUMMARY

The third-person effect hypothesis, first proposed by Davison (1983), has intrigued researchers for more than two decades. Despite the publication of scores of third-person effect journal articles and the presentation of an even larger number of convention papers, the hypothesis has yet to be established as a free-standing theory. Given this observation, it seems possible that, rather than being a theory itself, the third-person effect hypothesis represents an evolutionary step in the development of one or more already accepted theories or models of persuasion and communication. This is the approach we have taken in proposing the dual-perspective model of persuasion. A robust phenomenon, the third-person effect has obvious implications for persuasion literature. The hypothesis also emphasizes the dynamic of self–other comparisons and the behavior that may result from making these comparisons. This is reminiscent of the coorientation model. It is our assertion that the third-person effect hypothesis represents a link between persuasion theory and coorientation. In other words, the process of becoming persuaded may also be the process of defining self’s social reality, and social reality cannot occur without recognizing the existence of others.

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Author Index

A Abisaid, J., 8, 42, 55, 81, 87, 112, 141 Alicke, M. D., 9, 18, 60, 61, 68, 135 Allison, S. T., 26, 138 Allport, F. H., 5, 139 Anderson, J. D., 13, 14, 139 Andsager, J. L., 13, 29, 33, 44, 45, 53, 54, 64, 94, 135 Atkin, C. K., 47, 135 Atwood, L. E., 19, 56, 135 Austin, E. W., 50, 51, 135

B Banning, S. A., 7, 43, 44, 135, 136, 138 Baughman, J. L., 7, 136 Biggs, B., 69, 136 Blumler, J. G., 26, 139, 140 Borzekowski, D. L. G., 25, 42, 136 Bosman, J., 1, 136 Breitenbecher, D. L., 9, 18, 60, 61, 68, 135 Brosius, H.-B., 8, 13, 18, 27, 33, 52, 56, 57, 85, 136 Brown, J. D., 9, 18, 60, 68, 136, 143 Brown, J. R., 26, 140 Brumberg, J. J., 32, 136 Buchanan, M., 13, 14, 25, 46, 139 Burkhart, F. N., 53, 136 Bush, G. W., 133, 136

C Cacioppo, J. T., ix, xi, 27, 81, 82, 102, 105, 107, 108, 110, 114, 115, 116, 131, 136, 142 Capra, F., 105, 136 Cartwright, D., 65, 66, 67, 68, 70, 136 Chaffee, S. H., ix, xi, 65, 123, 125, 126, 127, 130, 136, 140 Chaiken, S., ix, xi, 27, 54, 102, 104, 105, 106, 108, 114, 115, 117, 136, 137, 138 Chang, C., 33, 34, 35, 42, 53, 139 Chapin, J. R., 9, 18, 42, 136, 137 Chen, S., 104, 105, 106, 108, 115, 137 Chia, S. C., 33, 43, 44, 45, 57, 137 Cho, H., 8, 19, 62, 63, 64, 70, 137 Chock, T., 60, 70, 137 Cohen, J., 5, 8, 38, 45, 46, 48, 51, 52, 61, 64, 69, 70, 75, 82, 83, 84, 123, 137, 144 Conners, J. L., 9, 137 Crawford, J. T., 94, 144

D David, P., 8, 16, 19, 20, 21, 30, 32, 86, 137 Davis, R. G., 48, 61, 64, 69, 70, 75, 84, 137 Davison, W. P., ix, 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, 9, 13, 16, 17, 18, 24, 27, 31, 43, 48, 78, 79, 88, 118, 127, 128, 134, 137 DeFleur, M. L., 39, 140

147

AUTHOR INDEX

148 DeLorme, D. E., 42, 44, 45, 139 Detenber, B. H., 19, 20, 23, 27, 40, 43, 44, 85, 101, 112, 113, 121, 122, 133, 134, 138, 140 Dewar, H., 133, 137 Dillon, J. F., 35, 46, 55, 70, 145 Domke, D., 53, 137 Dong, Q., 50, 51, 135 Douglas, K. M., 8, 10, 36, 137 Driscoll, P. D., 13, 16, 17, 44, 45, 137, 143 Duck, J. M., 18, 19, 20, 24, 32, 35, 42, 60, 63, 64, 84, 137 Duckworth, K., 104, 105, 106, 108, 115, 137 Dupagne, M., 6, 7, 9, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 25, 32, 34, 36, 40, 42, 56, 70, 92, 116, 138, 141, 143 Dunwoody, S., 109, 138 Durkin, K., 8, 10, 85, 138

E Eagly, A. H., ix, xi, 27, 114, 117, 138 Edminster, W., 67, 138 Engel, D., 8, 13, 18, 27, 33, 52, 56, 57, 85, 136 Eveland, W. P., Jr., 9, 19, 20, 21, 23, 25, 27, 34, 40, 43, 44, 85, 93, 94, 101, 112, 113, 121, 122, 133-134, 138, 140

F Faber, R. J., 8, 10, 13, 14, 15, 21, 23, 25, 40, 42, 43, 44, 45, 142, 143, 144, 145 Feighery, E., 25, 42, 136 Fetzer, B. K., 68, 142 Flora, J. A., 25, 42, 85, 136, 139 Frederick, E., 4, 47, 86, 93, 117, 141 Friestad, M., 109, 138 Fung, A., 8, 144

G Gaziano, C., 49, 50, 138 Gentles, K. A., 45, 138 Gibbon, P., 8, 10, 85, 138 Giese, J., 109, 138 Gilbert, D., 10, 138 Glynn, C. J., 5, 7, 138 Goethals, G. R., 26, 138 Golan, G., 20, 44, 138 Graber, D. A., 58, 138 Griffin, R. J., 109, 138 Grimm, J., 33, 135 Grunig, J. E., 126, 138

Gunther, A. C., 3, 5, 9, 10, 14, 18, 19, 21, 24, 33, 38, 40, 41, 42, 44, 45, 46, 49, 51, 52, 53, 60, 69, 70, 82, 83, 84, 103, 123, 137, 138, 138 Guo, Z., 58, 139 Gurevitch, M., 26, 139

H Han, C., 33, 135 Han, M., 8, 19, 62, 63, 64, 70, 137 Haridakis, P. M., 24, 44, 139 Harris, R., 33, 34, 35, 42, 53, 139 Harrison, K., 45, 138 Havice, M. J., 4, 13, 14, 16, 112, 144 He, Z., 8, 58, 145 Heider, F., 23, 139 Henricksen, L., 85, 139 Hitchon, J. C., 33, 34, 35, 42, 53, 139 Hoffner, C., 13, 14, 25, 46, 139 Hogg, M. A., 18, 19, 21, 24, 35, 42, 60, 61, 62, 63, 64, 69, 70, 76, 77, 82, 84, 87, 95, 101, 113, 118, 137, 142 Hoorens, V., 8, 19, 32, 41, 42, 60, 139 Houden, D., 8, 42, 55, 81, 87, 112, 141 Hovland, C. I., 28, 50, 139, 143 Huang, L.-N., 16, 20, 22, 36, 64, 142 Hubbs, L. A., 13, 14, 139 Huh, J., 42, 44, 45, 139 Hunt, T., 126, 138 Hurley, R. J., 35, 36, 37, 44, 139 Hwa, A. P., 40, 44, 70, 138

I Innes, J. M., 5, 15, 40, 42, 57, 139

J Jensen, J. D., 35, 36, 37, 44, 139 Johansson, B., 18, 139 Johnson, M. A., 16, 19, 21, 30, 32, 86, 137

K Kahneman, D., 66, 81, 101, 110, 111, 112, 113, 144 Kamigaki, S. K., 13, 14, 139 Katz, D., 5, 139 Katz, E., 26, 139 Kiousis, S., 49, 55, 139 Klotz, M. L., 9, 18, 60, 61, 68, 135 Koo, S. H., 8, 23, 44, 145 Kosicki, G. M., 58, 139

AUTHOR INDEX Kowalczyk, L., 13, 14, 139 Kuennen, R., 29, 33, 45, 135

L Lagos, T., 53, 137 Laing, R. D., 130, 140 Lambe, J. L., 13, 20, 23, 34, 38, 40, 41, 42, 58, 139 LaPointe, M., 53 , 137 Lasorsa, D. L., 7, 8, 16, 17, 23, 140, 143 Lasswell, H. D., x, 50, 140 LaVail, K., 33, 135 Lee, A. R., 130, 140 Lee, B., 8, 14, 40, 44, 140 Lee, S., 60, 70, 137 Liberman, A., ix, xi, 27, 114, Liebhart, J. L., 49, 138 Liu, K., 8, 20, 86, 137 Lo, V., 8, 14, 40, 44, 47, 140 López-Escobar, E., 8, 58, 145 Lowery, S. A., 39, 140 Lu, K.-H., 33, 43, 44, 45, 57, 137 Lubitsch, E., 105, 136 Lundy, L., 44, 138

M Maheswaran, D., 54, 136 Maraniss, D., 2, 140 Martin, E., 13, 44, 135 Martin, P. S., 49, 141 Mason, L., 53, 140 Mastin, T., 53, 135 Matera, F. R., 6, 28, 140 Mayo, C., 4, 117, 141 McGrath, K., 49, 50, 138 McGuire, W. J., x, 27, 109, 132, 140 McLeod, D. M., 9, 13, 19, 20, 21, 23, 25, 27, 33, 34, 38, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 57, 58, 85, 93, 97, 101, 112, 113, 121, 122, 133, 134, 137, 138, 139, 140 McLeod, J. M., ix, xi, 58, 65, 123, 125, 126, 127, 130, 136, 139, 140 McQuail, D., 26, 140 Meade, M., 53, 137 Meirick, P. C., 19, 24, 32, 60, 64, 70, 75, 76, 77, 87, 88, 92, 141 Merton, R. K., 5, 141 Messick, D. M., 26, 138 Miller, G., 107, 141 Miller, M., 110, 141 Mindich, D. T. Z., 37, 141 Morrison, G., 16, 32, 86, 137

149 Moy, P., 44, 58, 139, 144 Mullin, B., 18, 19, 32, 60, 84, 137 Mundy, P., 9, 18, 19, 24, 33, 41, 46, 138 Mutz, D. C., 5, 16, 28, 38, 48, 51, 52, 82, 83, 84, 123, 137, 141 Myser, M., 8, 20, 86, 137

N Nakahara, L., 113, 141 Nathanson, A. I., 23, 27, 40, 44, 85, 93, 94, 101, 112, 113, 121, 122, 133, 134, 138, 140 Nebergall, R. E., 28, 143 Neuwirth, K., 4, 47, 86, 93, 109, 117, 138, 141 Nisbett, R., 24, 141 Noelle-Neumann, E., 5, 116, 141

O Osgood, C. E., 64, 141 Ostman, R. E., 5, 7, 138

P Paddon, A. R., 8, 40, 44, 47, 140 Paek, H., 8, 42, 55, 81, 87, 112, 141 Pan, Z., 8, 42, 55, 81, 87, 112, 141 Park, H. S., 14, 141 Pastorek, A., 13, 14, 139 Patterson, T., 1, 141 Paul, B., 6, 7, 15, 31, 32, 56, 92, 116, 138, 141 Peiser, W., 19, 21, 26, 27, 70, 85, 142 Perloff, L. S., 68, 142 Perloff, R. M., 4, 5, 6, 7, 9, 13, 15, 16, 18, 20, 22, 23, 28, 29, 32, 43, 48, 49, 50, 54, 83, 94, 102, 106, 112, 118, 132, 133, 142 Peter, J., 19, 21, 26, 27, 70, 85, 142 Petty, R. E., ix, xi, 27, 81, 82, 102, 105, 107, 108, 110, 114, 115, 116, 131, 136, 142 Phillipson, H., 130, 140 Popper, K. R., 7, 142 Plotkin, R. S., 13, 14, 139 Price, V., 5, 7, 16, 19, 20, 22, 28, 29, 36, 37, 38, 51, 53, 64, 82, 83, 84, 123, 137, 142 Procter, D. E., 41, 143

R Reese, S. D., 54, 143

AUTHOR INDEX

150 Reid, L. N., 42, 44, 45, 139 Reid, S. A., 18, 19, 61, 62, 64, 69, 70, 76, 77, 82, 87, 95, 101, 113, 118, 142 Ribak, R., 45, 46, 144 Rich, F., 1, 142 Richardson, G. W., Jr., 48, 142 Rideout, V., 2, 142 Rimmer, T., 49, 55, 142 Rojas, H., 13, 14, 15, 23, 25, 40, 44, 45, 142 Rosenfeld, R., 4, 13, 14, 16, 112, 144 Ross, F., 16, 32, 86, 137 Ross, L., 24, 141, 142 Rouner, D., 55, 143 Rubin, A. M., 24, 26, 36, 44, 139, 142 Rucinski, D., 13, 14, 16, 20, 22, 25, 28, 33, 41, 42, 47, 56, 143 Ruiter, S., 8, 19, 32, 41, 42, 60, 139 Rumsey, D. J., 41, 143

S Salmon, C. T., 13, 14, 16, 20, 22, 25, 28, 33, 41, 42, 47, 56, 141, 143 Salwen, M. B., 6, 7, 9, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 22, 25, 28, 31, 32, 34, 36, 40, 42, 44, 45, 52, 53, 54, 56, 57, 92, 116, 137, 138, 140, 141, 143 Scharrer, E., 14, 39, 40, 143 Schenck-Hamlin, W. J., 41, 143 Schooler, C., 25, 42, 136 Schwartz, J., 33, 135 Shah, D. V., 10, 13, 14, 15, 21, 23, 25, 40, 42, 43, 44, 45, 142, 143, 145 Sherif, C. W., 27, 28, 143 Sherif, M., 27, 28, 143 Shoemaker, P. J., 7, 8, 54, 143 Sigelman, C. K., 53, 136 Silberg, K., 13, 14, 139 Silverblatt, A., 4, 13, 14, 16, 112, 144 Singer, J. L., 56, 58, 143 Slater, M. D., 55, 143 Smith, H., 133, 143 Stamm, K. R., 126, 138 Storey, J. D., 45, 103, 138 Stouffer, S. A., 13, 143 Sullivan, H. S., 127, 143 Sun, Y., 8, 42, 55, 81, 87, 112, 141 Sutton, R. M., 8, 10, 36, 137

Tamborini, R., 8, 14, 40, 44, 140 Tankard, J. W., Jr., 7, 8, 143 Tannenbaum, P. H., 64, 141 Taylor, S. E., 68, 143 Terry, D. J., 19, 21, 24, 35, 42, 60, 63, 64, 70, 84, 137 Tesser, A., 110, 141 Tewksbury, D., 7, 16, 19, 20, 22, 28, 29, 36, 37, 44, 64, 81, 142, 143, 144 Thorson, E., 3, 10, 19, 41, 42, 46, 60, 69, 70, 139 Tiedge, J. T., 4, 13, 14, 16, 112, 144 Tsfati, Y., 8, 45, 46, 144 Tversky, A., 66, 81, 101, 110, 111, 112, 113, 144

V Vredenburg, D. S., 9, 18, 60, 61, 68, 135 Vujnovic, M., 33, 135

W Wan, F., 8, 144 Weaver, D., 49, 55, 142 Wei, R., 14, 140 Weinstein, N. D., 9, 18, 144 Weis, D. S., 44, 144 Weiss, W., 50, 139 White, H. A., 19, 29, 33, 35, 44, 45, 46, 53, 54, 55, 63, 64, 70, 85, 94, 135, 144, 145 Willnat, L., 6, 8, 14, 16, 20, 28, 58, 116, 145 Wills, T. A., 9, 145 Wright, P., 109, 138 Wu, W., 8, 23, 44, 145 Wyatt, R. O., 13, 44, 135

X Xenos, M., 53, 137

Y Youn, S., 10, 21, 42, 44, 143, 145 Yurak, T. J., 9, 18, 60, 61, 68, 135

Z T Takeshita, T., 8, 58, 145

Zaller, J. R., 14, 145 Zeitz, H., 5, 15, 40, 42, 57, 139

Subject Index

A Advertising, 41–42, 103, 106 political, 41 public service announcements, 41–42, 103, 106 The More You Know, 106 Amerika, 17 Argument quality, 63–64

B Behavioral component, 43–47, 116 censorship, 43–44 individual traits, 44–45 motivation, 46–47 Behavioral structure, 68 Better-than-average effect, 9 Brokeback Mountain, 1

C Chicago Bears, 69 Cognitive structure, 65–66, 68 Common sense, 19 Congruity theory, 64–65 Coorientation, 123–133 direct perspective, 130–133 meta-perspective, 130–133 Credibility, 50–58 channel, 50–52, 55–58 People Magazine, 50 National Enquirer, 51–52

New York Times, 50–52 The Star, 50, 52 Wall Street Journal, 50 source, 53–54 Culture, 62

D Dark Passage, 110 Direct effects, see Powerful effects Downward comparison, 9 Dual-perspective model of persuasion, 128–134

E Ego-defense mechanism, 9 Elaboration likelihood model, 81, 105–110, 114–116 central route, 105–110 peripheral route, 105–110 Expertise, 16–17

F Fahrenheit 9/11, 1 First-person effect model, 4 Fundamental attribution error, 24

H Hatred, 39–41 Held beliefs, 64

151

152

SUBJECT INDEX

Heuristic processing, 55, 80–82, 106–114 gambler’s fallacy, 111 judgment under uncertainty, 112 law of small numbers, 111 representativeness, 111 Hosty v. Carter, 66

I Interest, 27–29 Michael Jackson, 29 Importance, 28 Indianapolis Colts, 69 Information processing, 58 Involvement, 27–30

K Knowledge, 16–17, 19

L Likelihood of exposure, 21–23, 25–28, 121–123 music, 23

M Magic bullet theory, see Powerful effects Marilyn Manson, 24 McGuire’s matrix, 109 Mere exposure, see Likelihood of exposure Message desirability, 31–35, 42–43 Motivational structure, 67–68 Murray State News, 66–67

N Need for cognition, 110 Needs, 104–105 accuracy, 104 defensive, 104 impression, 105 News content, 35–39, 52–53 importance, 37–38 libel, 38–39, 52–53 Magical number seven, 107 Misogyny, 39–41

O O.J. Simpson trial, 17

Optimistic bias, 9 Others, 79–80, 83, 88–94 discernable, 79–80 general-referent, 79–80, 88, 90–92, 94 message-referent, 88, 93–94 non-referent, 83 self-referent, 83, 89–92, 94

P Passion of the Christ, 1 PBS, 25 Perceptual component, 116 Personal vulnerability, 29–30 Powerful effects, 23, 25 Presumed influence, 45 Propaganda, 31, 78–79

S Second-person effect, 4 Selective perception, 48–50 Self-categorization, 18–19, 61–62, 82, 118–121 normative fit, 18, 82 optimistic bias, 18–19 Self-enhancement, 9, 18, 21 television, 21 Self-other comparisons, 69–70 Self esteem, 19 Social distance, 2–4, 27, 82–83, 123 Sociodemographics, 13–15 age, 13 gender, 14 education, 14–15 Social judgment theory, 24 Student Press Law Center, 66 Systematic processing, 53, 80–82, 106–110, 114–116

T Third-person perception model, 3

V Violence, 39–41

W Why We Fight, 105