Third-person Perception and Its Predictors in the Age of Facebook

Abstract

Originally proposed by Davison (1983), the TPE hypothesis maintains that people who are exposed to general persuasive media mes- sages believe that these messages have a greater impact on others (i.e., “the third persons”) than on themselves. Although classic TPE studies have long focused on the traditional mass media, many studies show that this effect is also common with regards to newer media outlets. By means of a survey (N=688), this study seeks to explore (1) the link between TPE and new mediums of communication (i.e., Facebook) and (2) the predic- tors of the TPE in the age of social media. Main results show that young people evaluate others as being more influenced by news posted on Fa- cebook than themselves. In terms of the overall third-person perception among young people, results point to the individual predictors as weigh- ing more than the contextual variables. The most significant predictors of the TPE are Facebook usage patterns (Facebook dependency) and social comparison. Therefore, findings confirm the fact that newer media outlets such as Facebook tend to follow the line established by traditional media outlets in terms of TPE; new media platforms do exert consistent effects on