Third-person effect

The third-person effect is a phenomenon of distorted perception, namely, to the tendency of many people to believe that the mass media affect others more than themselves, the third-person effect is attributed to the field of social psychology.

The third-person effect can affect human behavior and social processes, for example through measures to educate children and young people or the call for censorship, which are based on the assumption that " third parties " are particularly strongly influenced by the media and therefore special protection measures bedürften.

The third-person effect was observed by W. Phillips Davison in 1983 for the first time on the basis of anecdotal evidence. Since then, numerous studies have substantiated Davison considerations with empirical data. The third-person effect also has references to other theories of human behavior and media impact, including the theory of the spiral of silence.

Nomenclature

In the literature, the effect described above is also performed by other names. Apparently has prevailed no single name in German-speaking countries until today. So Michael Schenk writes in his classic work, media effects research from the third -person effect. Other names are:

• Other people effect
• Third-person phenomenon

Terms such as second- person effect and third -person perception (English Third - person Perception ) are not different names, but refer to elements within the theory of the third-person effect.

Swell

• Media Studies
• Social Psychology
• Communication Science