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The Third-person effect hypothesis or Third-person perception or Web Third-person effect predicts that people tend to perceive that mass communicated media messages have a greater effect on others than on themselves, based on personal biases; additionally, because of this perception, people tend to take action to counteract the messages’ influence. The Third-person effect hypothesis often manifests itself through an individual’s overestimation of the effect of a mass communicated message on the generalized other, or an underestimation of the effect of a mass communicated message on themselves. These types of perceptions stem from a self-motivated social desirability (not feeling influenced by mass messages promotes self-esteem), a social-distance corollary (choosing to dissociate oneself from the others who may be influenced) and a perceived exposure to a message (others choose to be influenced by persuasive communication). ==Foundations and Articulation of the Hypothesis== Sociologist W. Phillips Davison, who first articulated the third-person effect hypothesis in 1983, explains that the phenomenon first piqued his interest in 1949 or 1950 upon learning of a Japanese attempt during World War II to dissuade black U.S. soldiers from fighting at Iwo Jima using propaganda. As Davison recounts, the leaflets stressed that the Japanese did not have a quarrel with the black soldiers and that they should give up or desert. Although there was no indication that the leaflets had any effect on the soldiers, the incident preceded a substantial reshuffle among the officers and the unit was withdrawn the next day.〔 Several years later while interviewing West German journalists to determine the influence of the press on foreign policy, Davison asked the journalists to estimate the influence their editorials had on readers. Although no evidence could be found to support their claims, Davison writes that a common response was, “The editorials have little effect on people like you and me, but the ordinary reader is likely to be influenced quite a lot.”〔 In both anecdotes, the parties that evaluated the impact of the communication estimated a larger media effect for others than on self. These and other experiences led Davison to articulate what he called the third-person effect hypothesis, which predicts: :“people will tend to overestimate the influence that mass communications have on the attitudes and behavior of others. More specifically, individuals who are members of an audience that is exposed to a persuasive communication (whether or not this communication is intended to be persuasive) will expect the communication to have a greater effect on others than on themselves. And whether or not these individuals are among the ostensible audience for the message, the impact that they expect this communication to have on other may lead them to take some action. Any effect that the communication achieves may thus be due not to the reaction of the ostensible audience but rather to the behavior of those who anticipate, or think they perceive, some reaction on the part of others.” (p. 3).〔 In a case study conducted by Douglas McLeod et al. (1997), the third-person effect was analyzed via participants’ perceptions of being influenced by violent or misogynistic lyrics from rap music. The sample participants were divided up into three groups: one listened to violent rap music, another heard misogynistic rap music and the third group was the control. All lyrics heard were from actual, recorded songs. The study asked subjects to estimate the effects of listening to these types of lyrics on someone’s behaviors, knowledge and attitudes. They were also asked how these lyrics would affect themselves, students at their university, youth in New York or Los Angeles, and the average person. The study found that students found the rap lyrics to be least influential on themselves and more influential on youths in New York or Los Angeles. Simply put, people are more likely to assume everyone else is more easily influenced by messages than themselves. Furthermore, a recent study conducted by Nikos Antonopoulos et al. (2015),〔 found characteristics of what users observe when visiting a media website as wells as a prediction model. The influence that this information has over their opinion verifies the existence of Web Third-person effect (WTPE). With the use of an online survey (N = 9150) in all media websites (radio station, television station, portal, newspaper and email-social media) it was proved that the variables that have a greater impact either on others or our friends than ourselves are: The number of users being concurrently online on the same media website, the exact number of users having read each article on a media website as well as the number of users having shared a news article on Facebook, Twitter, or other social networks. Moreover, age is a significant factor that explains the findings and is important to the effect. Additionally, factors that affect the influence of the user generated messages on others than on oneself were found. Furthermore, the more credible the news is perceived to be and when there is not a particular mediated message the WTPE is absent confirming the existing theory. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Third-person effect」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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