The Role of the Self in the Third-Person Effect:
A View from Cognitive and Motivational Perspectives
Li-Ning Huang
Doctoral Student
Department of Communication
University of Michigan
2020 Frieze Building
Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1285
(313) 665-3453
Email: [log in to unmask]
Running Head: The Role of Self
Paper submitted to the Division of Communication Theory & Methodology for
presentation at the annual conference of Association for Education in
Journalism and Mass Communication, Washington, D. C., August, 1995.
The Role of the Self in the Third-Person Effect:
A View from Cognitive and Motivational Perspectives
Li-Ning Huang
Doctoral Student
Department of Communication
University of Michigan
2020 Frieze Building
Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1285
(313) 665-3453
Email: [log in to unmask]
Abstract
In considering the role of the self in the third-person effect, this paper
proposes to conceptualize the self from a social psychological
perspective. I argue that the conceptualization of self from motivational
and cognitive perspectives is beneficial to understand the
psychological
processes underlying the third-person effect phenomenon. Accordingly,
the
self-concept, self-schemata and self-esteem mechanisms are discussed
and
their relationships with the third-person effect are examined.
The Role of the Self in the Third-Person Effect:
A View from Cognitive and Motivational Perspectives
Abstract
In considering the role of the self in the third-person effect, this paper
proposes to conceptualize the self from a social psychological
perspective. I argue that the conceptualization of self from motivational
and cognitive perspectives is beneficial to understand the
psychological
processes underlying the third-person effect phenomenon. Accordingly,
the
self-concept, self-schemata and self-esteem mechanisms are discussed
and
their relationships with the third-person effect are examined.
The Role of the Self in the Third-Person Effect:
A View from Cognitive and Motivational Perspectives
In 1983, Davison (1983), based on the findings of four modest experiments,
formulated the "third-person effect" hypothesis to indicate the disparity
between the perceived effects of media content on oneself and on
others.
Davison (1983) suggested that individuals tend to overestimate the
media
effects on others and these exaggerated perceptions influence their
behaviors. Over the past decade, this relatively new research domain has
inspired a fruitful body of both experimental and survey research and
demon
strated compelling evidence to support this third-person phenomenon.
Following Davison's proposition, a number of consequent research efforts
have sought to explain the processes that underlie this effect (e.g.
Cohen
& David, 1991; Cohen, Mutz, Price & Gunther, 1988; Gunther & Mundy,
1993;
Lasorsa, 1989; Perloff, 1989; Tiedge, Silverbltt, Havice & Rosenfeld,
1991;). They examined different contingent factors such as personal
expertise, message attributes and source bias to determine the presence or
absence of the third-person phenomenon. In other words, the
third-person
effect phenomenon is not universal. There are boundaries set for this
effect to occur.
While a number of investigators have attempted to identify the contingent
factors facilitating or deterring the occurrence of the third-person
effect
phenomenon, however, none of them has substantially looked at the role of
the self in influencing the third-person effect. By looking at the
term
"third-person" per se, it explicitly indicates "them" rather than "me"
or
"you." However, Davison's (1983) third-person effect is not what the
term
nominally suggests as the effect on other people. Instead, it is an
effect
on an individual's attitude or action based on his/her "perceived"
media
effects on others. That is, people generally think that the media
messages
have impact on other people, but not "me." Since it is "me" who
estimate
the media effects on oneself and on others, the characteristics of
"me"
should be important to account for the generation of the third-person
effect.
However, the question of who is "I" or "me" is not conceptually clarified
in Davison's (1983) original formulation and other consequent studies.
A
review of prior research in this area reveals that past research
efforts
tended to define and measure the "me" and "third-person" in a
seemingly
simple way. In most studies, subjects were asked "how much do you think
this news would influence your attitude toward the target?" and "how
much
do you think this news would influence other people's attitudes toward
the
target?" In this way, the question of "who is I" or the concept of the
self
has largely remained an unanalyzed concept in the third-person effect
research.
Accordingly, the primary purpose of this paper is to examine the role of
the self in the third-person effect. With the aim to elaborate the
concept
of self in the third-person effect and understand the role of self in
influencing the occurrence of the third-person effect, this paper starts
reviewing briefly the theoretical underpinnings of the third-person
effect
hypothesis, then examines the concept of the self relevant to the
third-person effect from a social psychological perspective, in particular,
with social cognitive and psychological motivational approaches. I argue
that the conceptualization of the self from motivational and cognitive
perspectives is beneficial to understand the psychological processes
underlying the third-person effect phenomenon. For example, the motivation
to preserve one's self-esteem or self-presentation, or the
self-biasing
motive is assumed to account for the psychological process underlying
the
third-person effect. In addition, the self-schemata (Markus, 1977)
which
refer to cognitive structures about self is assumed to account for the
information-processing processes in the third-person effect. Besides
examining the concept of self from cognitive and motivational
perspectives,
this paper also suggests some research directions considered essential to
advance the understanding of the motivational and cognitive factors in
influencing the occurrence or the magnitude of the third-person effect.
It
is hoped that the conceptualization of the self from cognitive and
motivational perspectives could make a unique contribution to understanding
how third-person effect is generated.
The Theoretical Underpinnings of the Third-Person Effect Hypothesis
According to Davison (1983, p.3), the third-person effect is generated not
by the actual reactions of the audience toward the media messages, but,
instead, by people's "perception" of how "third persons" will be
affected.
Davison's third-person conceptualization suggests that individuals
tend to
overestimate the impact of mass communications on the attitudes and
behaviors of others and thus behave in accordance with their estimates of
effects on others (Cohen and Davis, 1991; Perloff, 1989; Gunther,
1991).
Therefore, there are several stages leading to the third-person
effect.
First, one examines the communication messages. Second, he/she
estimates
their effect on others and, most of the times, tends to overestimate
the
effect on others. And last, he/she reacts in response to the
overestimation
of effect on others.
Studies of the self-other differences in response to the media effect have
proliferated since Davison's (1983) proposition. A great number of recent
studies investigating various aspects of Davison's formulation have
yielded
consistent findings with Davison's (1983) third-person effect hypothesis.
Most of them have demonstrated the discrepancy between perceptions of
communication effect on others and on the self, such as effects of the
mini-series "Amerika" (Lasorsa, 1989), the influence of negative
political
advertising (Cohen and Davis, 1991), news broadcasts of Middle East
conflict (Perloff, 1989), effects of product commercials and public service
announcements (Gunther and Thorson, 1992) and defamatory articles about
prominent persons (Cohen et al., 1988).
While most of the empirical findings support the third-person effect, some
scholars have further attempted to explain the processes by which this
effect is generated. They found that the intensity of the third-person
effect varies with the variety of audience attributes such as education,
age, expertise, involvement and pre-existing attitudes and message
characteristics such as message topic and media bias. The following is a
discussion of those conditional determinants specified by previous
research.
Expertise, Ego-Involvement, Disposition and I
With regards to the concept of "self," Davison (1983) suggested, although
not tested, that "others do not have the information that enables me
to
form a correct opinion" (p. 11). He suggested that "we are all experts
on
those subjects that matter to us, in that we have information not
available
to other people" (p.9). He observed that "other people do not know what we
know. Therefore, they are more likely to be influenced by the media."
From this perspective, the notion of expertise serves as an intervening
variable to increase or decrease the third-person effect.
Findings of research efforts have supported for the personal expertise
explanation of third-person phenomenon. Lasorsa's (1989) survey study
which
examined the impact of the network television miniseries "America," a
political fiction about life in the United States after a Soviet
takeover,
found that "perceived political knowledge rather than real political
knowledge fuels the third-person effect." People who think they know more
about politics are more likely to resist influence and perceive others
as m
ore affected by the media content.
Perloff's (1989) experimental study examined the impact of television news
coverage of the 1982 Arab-Israeli war in Lebanon on his subjects
themselves and on others. He hypothesized that pro-Israeli partisans would
be more likely than pro-Palestinian partisans to perceive that the
news
coverage was biased against Jews and would cause the neutral audience
to
feel less favorably toward Israel and vice versa and concluded that
"ego-involvement powerfully influences perceptions of communication
effects" (p. 255).
In a similar vein, Cohen and Davis' (1991) experiment tested the
relationship between one's disposition toward negative political
advertising and the differential effects. They hypothesized that if the
individual "accepted" the message, he would perceive that he would be
affected, but not others. On the other hand, if he/she rejected the
message, he/she would perceive that the message had no effect on
him/herself, but on others. Their findings support the strong tie between
personal disposition toward a message and personal attribution of
whether
the message will affect oneself or others.
Age, Eduction and I
In the line with the research assuming that expertise can magnify the
discrepancy between perceived first-person and perceived third-person
media
effects, Tiedge et al. (1991) hypothesized that education would be
positively related to the discrepancy between the perceived first-person
and perceived third-person effects. They also tested if age would be
positively related to the first-person effect or to the third-person
effect. Their survey study found that individuals with higher education
level reported themselves being not so much affected, but others more
influenced. They suggested that higher educated people are more aware of
the power of the media and thus view themselves less susceptible to
such
effects. However, this explanation cannot be applied to less educated
people since their findings do not illustrate that less educated people
have the reversed third-person effect.
What is interesting is the relationship between age and the discrepant
perceptions. Tiedge et al.'s (1991) study suggests that older persons
are
more likely to feel that mass media influences them less than others.
They
explained that perhaps older people felt that they had alternative
sources
of information and viewed themselves as less dependent on media than
younger people, thus minimizing the effects on the self and magnify the
effects on others. However, their study did not investigate this
explanati
on. The question of why older people tend to have the third-person
effect
remains unclarified.
Who is "I"?
Although the results of these empirical research strongly support the
third-person effect hypothesis, a majority of researchers conducted
experiments in which university undergraduates were asked to assess the
relative effects of media messages on themselves and on other persons
(e.g.
Cohen et al., 1988;. Gunther, 1991; Gunther and Mundy, 1983; Gunther and
Thorson,1992) with an exception of the study by Tiedge et al. (1991)
who
conducted a telephone survey in two midwestern cities asking
respondents to
judge the effects of media. In addition, most of research examined the
relationship between the disparity of effects and demographic
characteristics such as education and age. Thus, overall, with regard
to
the self, research in this area primarily focuses on the demographic
or
psychographic characteristics such as age, education, prior knowledge
and
prior attitudes. Moreover, the subjects used in most studies of this
area
were limited to undergraduate students. The individual differences in
self-esteem motive and in other personality traits which are assumed to
be
essential to affect the occurrence or the magnitude of the
third-person
effect have never been empirically investigated.
Message Topic
The majority of the third-person effect studies have used the negative
messages as the stimulus. Messages such as defamatory stories, negative
political advertising and news coverage about the Middle East conflict
are
likely to lead the individuals to have the third-person effect.
Gunther
and Mundy's (1993) study illustrates that people estimate greater
media
effects on others than on themselves for messages with harmful
outcomes,
but no difference in effect for beneficial messages. In a similar
vein, Gun
ther and Thorson (1992) found the third-person effect for
advertisements,
but not for public service announcements which are assumed to benefit
the
individual. Thus, it appears that the third-person effect is likely to
emerge when messages are perceived to advocate harmful outcomes and when
the individual perceives that "it is not smart to be affected by that
message" (Gunther & Thorson, 1992, p.61).
Media Bias
Studies manipulating the message sources have demonstrated a strong
relationship between the perceived message source bias and the
third-person
effect. Perloff (1989) examined the third-person effect of news coverage
of Middle East conflict between Israeli and Palestinians and concluded
that
individuals who perceived that the media reports were biased against their
side tended to overestimate the impact that these reports exerted on third
persons. The findings assemble to what Davison (1983) observed. Davison
(1983) suggested that people on both sides of an issue can see the
media as
biased against their own point of view and then report "a disproportionate
effect" generated by media coverage supporting the "wrong" side of the
issue. Davison (1983) also observed that there is no third-person
effect
on the right side. He reasoned that maybe that is because the facts
supporting the individual's opinion is not seen as persuasive, but merely a
reinforcement. Thus, based on these findings, the third person effect is
irrelevant to the positive or neutral news coverage.
In Gunther's (1991) study, the trustworthiness of the source of a
defamatory newspaper article was manipulated to test the third person
effect. Similarly, Cohen et al. (1988) varied intentions behind a message
by attributing a defamatory story to a source either biased against or
friendly toward the subject of the story. Both studies found that biased
content would enhance the perceived media effect on others.
This concludes the review of the third-person effect research. At this
point, I adopt a relatively different approach to theoretically
explicate
the role of the self in third-person effect hypothesis. I begin by
addressing the speculation of the concept of self which has been widely
explored by social psychologists and cognitive psychologists. Then, I
analyze how the self from cognitive and motivational perspectives relate
to
the occurrence of the third-person effect, which have been overlooked by
third-person effect theorists but may be important to understand the
psychological and information-processing mechanisms underlying this
phenomenon.
The Self: Theoretical Background
The notion of the self has been largely used and become conspicuous within
the domain of social psychology: for example, within behaviorism via Bem's
(1972) theory of self-attribution; within social learning theory via
Bandura's (1977) focus on self-efficacy; and within cognitive dissonance
theory via Aronson's (1968) and Bramel's (1968) reformulations. It is
also
increasingly evident in theories of attitude and value formation and
change. Although the third-person effect hypothesis is one of the various
r
ecent theories about media's impact on attitudes and behaviors,
research in
this area and other areas of mass communication has not carefully examined
this concept and its relationships with other communication effects.
With regard to the definition of the concept of the self, although it has
occupied a central place within the domain of social psychology, to
derive
a fairly rigorous definition of self is a problem. The issues involved
in
such an analysis are complex and difficult, as anyone who has dabbled
in
the voluminous literature on this topic will attest to. As a result,
there
appear a number of ways to define this concept and its meaning seems
to
have no single, simple core as every scholar conceptualizes this
construct
in his/her own ways through different perspectives and uses. With the
recognition of this problem, this paper focuses on the perspective of
motivation and social cognition and discusses its appropriate literature
relevant to the third-person effect hypothesis.
The Conceptualization of the "Self" and the Third-Person Effect
William James (1890 & 1892) who is generally identified as the earliest
"self" psychologist is best known for the I-Me dichotomy in which he
suggested that the total self could be divided into two "discriminated
aspects"--the self as the knower and the self as that which is known, or
the agent of experience and the contents of experience (Wells, 1976,
p.14).
Although most psychologists view the self as an "active" agent seeking
knowledge, materials and identities, I argue that, in the third-person
effect hypothesis, the self assumably is an object, not an active agent;
a
content of what is known, not a knower.
In the third-person effect studies, when individuals are asked to estimate
the media message effects on themselves and on others, they are actually
comparing what they know to what others know, and, thus, comparing the
content of the self--"Me"-- to other people. During the process of
comparison, individuals view themselves as an object, not as an active
behavioral agent. The message effect on oneself is based on the content
of
what is known about the self or the content of experience.
Cooley (1902) who is the next major figure dealing with the idea of self
examined the idea of self from a more sociological perspective. Cooley
sought to emphasize the continuity of the individual with society and
suggested that the self could not be separated from the social milieu in
which he/she is imbedded or he/she interacts with other persons. In
addition, Wells (1976) notes that Cooley is perhaps best known for his
notion of the looking-glass self, which postulates that an individual's
conception of him/herself is determined by perception of other people's
reactions to him or her.
Cooley's notion that the sense of self always involves a sense of other
people could be applied to explain the aspect of comparison implied by
third-person effect phenomenon. Without comparison, third-person effect
cannot occur since the magnitude of the third-person effect is measured
by
the discrepancy between the estimated effects on the self and on other
persons. Furthermore, the comparison of media effects on oneself and on
others has to be based on the individual's social interaction. The
third-person effect hypothesis has to assume that people socially interact
with one another and thus can estimate the effects on other persons
such as
family, peers, community residents and general public. Without the sense
of other persons, individuals are unable to estimate the message
effects on
other persons.
Following James and Cooley, Wells (1976, p. 17) suggested that Mead (1934
& 1956) proposed what is considered the most cogent and systematic
statement of the development of the self. Like James, Mead saw the essence
of the self in the I-Me distinction. Like Cooley, Mead viewed the self
as a
social phenomenon. Mead (1934 & 1956) identified the self as symbol-using
or symbol-dependent process. Mead postulated that, through the use of
language and over the course of experience and maturation, the person
devel
ops "the ability to take the role not only of a specific other person
with
respect to himself, but of a groups of others--real or inferred--which
correspond to the society's representations within the individual"
(Wells,
1976, p. 17).
Mead (1981) treated the self as a social object and emphasized the social
process by which the self is generated. In line with social
interactionism,
he proposed that individuals should take an objective, impersonal attitude
toward him/herself. He/she has to first become an object to him/herself by
taking the attitude of other individuals toward him/herself within a
social environment or context of experience and behavior in which both
he/she and they are involved. The self is essentially a social
structure,
and it arises in social experience. Thus, the structure of the
complete
self is thus a reflection of the complete social process.
In the third-person effect, when the subjects are asked to estimate the
effects of the media messages on themselves and on other people, they
should treat themselves as an "object" to compare themselves to others.
The
self in these studies is not a process, but a "product" as "a physical,
social and spiritual or moral being" (Gecas, 1982, p.3). In addition,
Mead's postulation of viewing the self as a social object emerging from
interactions with others can be applied to the comparison process
between
oneself and others in the third-person effect. When individuals are
asked
to estimate the message effects on different others such as "Stanford
students," "Californians" and general public, they imaginatively locate
the
different "others" along the continuum and distinguish the social roles
the different "others" represent in the individual's mind.
Distinguishing the different social roles of others is an essential step
in the third-person effect hypothesis. Through this process, the
individual
asks him/herself "how much information this social group is supposed to
have or how competent this social group is supposed to be to discern
the
persuasiveness of the message?" The impact of the perception of
different
roles for different others or different social groups on the
third-person
effect is supported by Cohen, Mutz, Price and Gunther' (1988) and
Cohen and
Davis' (1991) studies which demonstrated that the third-person effect
mitigated or magnified as the "others" differed. In their experiment,
the
"others" included "other Stanford students," "other Californians" and
"public opinion at large." They found that the third-person effect
increased as the "others" became more distant or remote to the message
receivers or evaluators. During the effect estimation process, the
message
receivers estimate the media effect on others based on the roles or
social
representations of different others within him/herself.
The Sociological and Psychological Approaches to the Self
With regard to the self-concept, there are two traditions regarding the
development of the self-concept: sociological tradition and
psychological
tradition (Gecas, 1982). Sociology tends to focus on the antecedents
of
self-conceptions and typically examines the self-concept within
patterns of
social interaction. On the other hand, psychology tends to focus on the
consequences of self-conceptions, particularly those related to
behavior.
In other words, the former looks for the causes of behavior outside
the
individual--for example, culture, social structure, or social
situation,
while the latter looks for an apparently "internal" view of the causes
of
behavior--for example, motivation. This paper adopts the psychological
approach to address the role of the self in the third-person effect by
examining the "internal" aspect of the causes of behavior. However, it
does
not mean that other cultural or social factors which may affect the
intensity of third-person effect are unimportant. Instead, so far, the
social influence or cultural influence on the occurrence of the
third-person effect has been ignored by scholars in this area and deserve
future attention.
Sociologists typically define the self-concept as the total set of beliefs
about and attitudes toward the self as an object of reflection (Gecas,
1982; Rosenberg, 1979, see Morgan & Schwalbe, 1990). For example,
Rosenberg
(1979) defined the self-concept broadly as "the totality of an
individual's thoughts and feelings having reference to himself as an
object" (p.7). Turner (1968) proposed a more specific definition: "a felt
idea of what I am like in my best moments, of what I am striving
toward and
have some encouragement of believe I can achieve, or of what I can do when
the situation supplies incentives of unqualified effort" (p. 98).
Moreover, Epstein (1973) offered a relatively novel conceptualization. He
suggested that the self-concept can be viewed as "a theory that a
person
holds about himself as an experiencing, functioning being in
interaction
with the world." Epstein's formulation emphasizes the interaction with
the
world rather than values, attitudes, and motivations. Thus, Epstein's
ideas
for the self-concept are compatible with Mead's sociological formulations.
Concerning the psychological perspective on the self-definition, there are
two dimensions. One focuses on the psychological processes through which
changes in self-definition are accomplished. Some scholars suggest
that
changes in self-definition are the result of cognitive/perceptual
processes. The other dimension argues that changes in self-definition are
the result of motivational processes (Tesser & Campbell, 1982).
Similar to this classification, Morgan and Schwalbe (1990) propose two
different social-cognitive approaches to the self-concept: the more
cognitive view of American students of social cognition and the more social
view of their European counterparts.
American approach to the self focuses on the construct of schemas which
refers to the representational structures into which memory is
organized
during the information-processing processes. In the American social
cognition approach, the analog to the self-concept is a set of self-schemas
which refer to the framework for organizing knowledge about some aspects
of the self. The self-concept thus can be regarded as consisting of a
structured set of such schemas-- organized knowledge about aspects of the
self that are organized in turn into a larger framework comprising all
knowledge about the self (Fiske and Taylor, 1984, pp. 154-159; Markus,
1977; Markus and Sentis, 1982).
Self-schemas are used more often to summarize the self in terms of traits
(e.g. independence vs. dependence). A person who is schematic in a
given
domain of self usually will be able to perceive and assimilate
information
related to this domain more quickly than information related to some
nonschematized domain (Morgan & Schwalbe, 1990, p. 155). According to this
cognitive approach, self-schemas guide the perception and processing
of new
information.
Compared to the American version of social cognition, the European stream
of social cognition treats the self-concept as a special kind of
representation: of the self to the self. The social representations
perspective suggests that we consider how representations of "the self," of
"selves," and of "types of selves" are genuinely social--that is, products
of collective image construction (Morgan & Schwalbe, 1990, p. 156). That
approach emphasizes that groups collectively develop ways of thinking
about
these things and the ways shape in turn how individuals can think about
themselves (Morgan & Schwalbe, 1990).
Although both American and European approaches have proposed proper
speculations about the concept of self, this paper will adopt the American
approach to discuss the role of the self in the third-person effect by
focusing on the intra-personal processes. There are two reasons. First,
the
third-person effect is considered as a result of individual judgment about
the media effects on the self and on others. During this judgmental
process, the social or cultural influence is not manifest or well-known.
Second, although social or cultural differences may have differential
impacts on the occurrence of the third-person effect, that is, social or
cultural factors may influence the perception of the stimulus or of
persons, the third-person effect theorists, so far, has not examined this
aspect. The following is the discussion of the self from the
motivational
and cognitive perspectives.
The Impact of Motivation on the Third-Person Effect
This section will focus on the major motive related to the self-concept:
the self-esteem or self-enhancement motive or self-serving bias. While
self-enhancement emphasizes "growth, expansion, and increasing one's
self-esteem," self-maintenance focuses on "not losing what one has"
(Gecas,
1982, p.21). Anyway, all these terms refer to the human motive to preserve
a positive self. The exploration of this motive is considered to help
clarify the underlying psychological processes by which individuals tend
to
overestimate the effects of persuasive messages on others or underestimate
the effects on themselves.
Many forms of motivational influence have been proposed to account for
different psychological theories, which include self-efficacy,
effectance
motivation, ego-protective impulses, need to control and so on. The
following is a discussion of self-esteem motive which has been considered
highly relevant to the occurrence of the third-person effect research
(Gunther, 1991).
Self-Esteem Motive and the Third-Person Effect
Self-esteem deals with the evaluative and affective dimensions of the
self-concept (Wells, 1976; Shibutani, 1961). Most research on the
self-concept focuses on this aspect, so that sometimes self-concept is
equated with self-esteem (Wells, 1976). As Gecas (1982) interpreted,
"the
predominance of this aspect of self-concept is the motivation
significance
of self-esteem" (p.4).
In much of the relevant literature, self-esteem refers to an individual's
overall self-evaluation (Gecas, 1982, p.5). Gradually, this concept
has
been elaborated and, as a result, various aspects of self-esteem have
been
differentiated, for example, sense of power and sense of worth (Gecas,
1971); "inner" and "outer" self-esteem (Franks & Marolla, 1976);
evaluation
and affection (Wells, 1976); sense of competence and self-worth (Smith,
1978); self-evaluation and self-worth (Brissett, 1972); and competence
and
morality (Rokeach, 1973; Vallacher, 1980; Hales, 1980). Other related
terms
might include labels such as self-love, self-confidence, self-respect,
self-acceptance, self-satisfaction, self-evaluation, self-appraisal,
personal efficacy, self-ideal congruence, and ego or ego-strength (Wells,
1976, p. 7).
Based on these different interpretations about self-esteem, Gecas (1982)
observed the distinction between (a) self-esteem based on a sense of
power,
competence, or efficacy and (b) self-esteem based on a sense of virtue or
moral worth. These two types function differently and constitute
different
source of motivation. Since the comparison between the media effects on
the self and on others is associated with personal expertise,
knowledge,
and ability, the self-esteem in the third-person effect appears to
refer to
the competency-based self-esteem.
The widespread current use of self-esteem can be easily demonstrated.
Wells (1976) pointed out that self-esteem has been a variable of
interest
in a number of areas such as conformity (Gergen and Bauer, 1967),
responses
to threat, or stress (Schalon, 1968), dishonest behavior, (Aronson and
Mettee, 1968), social participation (Coombs, 1969), competitive
behavior
(Graf and Hearne, 1970), interpersonal attraction (Leonard, 1973),
group
attraction (Dittes, 1959), cognitive dissonance (Cooper and Duncan,
1971;G
reenwald and Ronis, 1978), equity-maintenance (Pepitone et al., 1967),
attitude change and persuasibility (Silverman et al., 1966), helping and
help-seeking behavior (McMillen and Reynolds, 1969), and causal
attribution
(Fitch, 1970).
With regard to the self-esteem motive and cognitive dissonance, Greenwald
and Ronis (1978) argued that "the motivational force in the present
versions of dissonance theory has much more of an ego-defensive
character...The theory seems now to be focused on cognitive changes
occurring in the service of ego defense, or self-esteem maintenance, rather
than in the interest of preserving psychological consistency" (p. 54-55).
In a similar vein, Rokeach (1979) viewed the inquiry of the attitude or
behavior change as being related to the question that how changes
affect on
the self. He also located the motivating mechanism in the discrepancy
between a cognitive or behavioral element and the person's
self-conception.
He pointed out that such discrepancies were motivating because they
threatened self-maintenance and self-enhancement.
Within attribution theory, the self-esteem motive is manifest in
discussions of self-serving bias in attribution process (Bradley, 1978;
Arkin et al., 1980; Bowerman, 1978). The bias is the tendency of
individuals to take credit for positive outcomes, but to deny
responsibility for negative consequences (Ross & Fletcher, 1985). A
number
of studies have related attribution to self-esteem and revealed strong
support for the operation of self-serving, or defensive, causal
attributions (a review for these studies, see Bradley, 1978).
Within the third-person effect framework, this self-esteem motive in the
general tendency to distort reality in the service of maintaining a
positive self-conception is manifest. When the individuals are asked to
estimate the effects of media messages on themselves and on other
people,
they are actually evaluating themselves--their ability and knowledge
to
discern the media bias. Accordingly, they tend to overstate the
discrepancy
between the perceived media effects on selves and the perceived effects on
others in order to maintain their self-esteem.
This paper thus proposes two ways or routes that individuals use to
maintain their self-esteem and by which individuals either overestimate
media effects on others or underestimate media effects on themselves.
First, when the individual is processing the media messages, if the
cognitive activities center on the uniqueness or superiority of the self,
the underestimation of media effects on oneself will occur. In other
words,
during the information processing processes, the individual keeps thinking
that "I am knowledgeable and capable to discern that bias of the media
coverage and thus resistant to the media influence." If he/she admits
that
the effect of a biased, or negative, message on him/herself is
stronger
than the impact on other people, this confession will threaten his/her
self-maintenance by implying that he/she does not have the ability to
judge
the right or wrong and he/she is inferior than other people. In this way,
the self-esteem motive distorts individuals' perceptions and
cognitions,
resulting in underestimation of message effects on themselves.
Second, the individuals may distort their perceptions or cognitions by
de-evaluating other people's abilities or knowledge. In other words,
the
information-processing processes focus on other people's ability or
knowledge. Upon being asked to estimate the message effects on others,
individuals could think that general audience is passive, gullible and
manipulable; thus, resulting in the overestimation of message effects on
others.
However, so far, third-person effect research has not figured out if the
third-person effect comes from the overestimation of message effects
on
others or comes from the underestimation of message effects on the
self. It
is likely that these two processes are not dichotomous, but can co-occur
when individuals are estimating the effects. However, which process or
route predominates over the other is not clearly known yet.
In addition, although the third-person effect researchers recognize the
role of motivation playing in the third-person effect (Gunther, 1991)
and
suggest that it can be "a self-serving, motivated bias that reinforces
an
observer's self-esteem" (Gunther, 1991, p. 357), there is no empirical
evidence to support this reasoning. So far, no researcher has measured
subjects' self-esteem and examined its relationship with the
third-person
effect.
Cognitive Perspective of the Self: Self-Schemas
A number of theorists has proposed a cognitive view of the self. For
example, Sarbin (1954), Kelly (1955), Epstein (1973) and more recently
Markus (1977) have explicitly considered the self as a cognitive
structure
or set of structures that organize, modify, and integrate functions of
the
person.
The idea that the self provides a standard for our perceptions is an
extremely prevalent assumption of various psychology studies. Sherif and
Hovland (1961), for example, repeatedly demonstrated that one's own
stand
on an important issues had a marked impact on how one interpreted the
responses of others to that issue. Goldings (1954) reported that
perception
of the happiness of others was positively related to one's own reported
level of happiness.
Underlying the idea that the self provides a standard for our perceptions
is the assumption that the self is the center of the perceptual or
cognitive field and it functions as an anchor for judgments. As Markus and
Smith (1981,) suggested, "the self is a central force, the main
anchor, or
the first structure through which all stimulus information is
initially
processed" (p.235).
One highly accessible internal structure that influences the information
processing, or that is used in organizing, categorizing, or
interpreting
information is one's "self-structure" (Markus & Smith, 1981, p. 234).
The
self-structure has been broadly implicated in the studies on social
comparison theory, attribution theory and personality assessment. Construed
in the most general sense, the question of the impact of the self on the
perception refers to how the individual's thought, feelings,
attributes, a
ttitudes, and cognitive structures influence the perception. The issue
of
concern in this paper is the question of how the self-structure, which
is
comprised of thoughts and feelings about the self in particular
domains,
influences the individual's social information processing and
judgments in
those domains.
The author argues that social psychologists' proposition that the
cognitive organization of one's self-knowledge or self-structure influences
the processing of social information can be applied to account for the
third-person effect phenomenon. Individuals' self-schemata (Markus,
1977)--the cognitive structures about the information about oneself-- or
individual's feelings toward themselves should influence the message
effect
estimation process. The following is a discussion of the cognitive view of
the self.
Schema
According to one broad and generally accepted definition, a schema is an
"abstract, general structure that establishes relations between
specific
events or entities" (Hastie, 1981, p.41). Another definition describes
schemas as "cognitive structures of organized prior knowledge,
abstracted
from experience with specific instances" (Fiske & Linville, 1980, p.
543).
In addition, Landman and Manis (1983) suggested three principle
features of
schemas: (1) schemas are cognitive structures; (2) schemas represent both
general specific knowledge, in a single higher-order unit; and (3)
schemas
have an impact on cognitive processing. Of which, the third feature is
addressed in this paper because it is assumed that schemas have an
impact
on individuals' media-information processing and estimation of the
effects
on themselves and on others.
Taylor and Crocker (1981) concluded that schemas enabled people to
"process some information faster and other information in more depth" (p.
103). This explanation in processing time centers on possible
differences
in the nature of the processing elicited by different kinds of
information.
Taylor and Crocker (1981) hypothesized that information that was
redundant, central, affectively neutral, and/or evaluatively consistent
with a schema might undergo faster, automatic processing. Conversely,
novel, peripheral, affectively charged, and/or evaluatively inconsistent
information might be processed more deeply and more slowly through
controlled processing. Applying Taylor and Crocker's (1981) hypothesis, the
author suggests that individuals should estimate the media effects on
themselves faster than the media effects on others, particularly when
the
content of media messages contain some features considered central and
made
salient to the message receivers or when the content corresponds to the
receivers' schemas activated at that time.
Accordingly, it is suggested that individuals not only overestimate the
message effects on others, or underestimate effects on themselves, as
Davison's (1983) third-person effect hypothesis suggested, but also
estimate the message effects on themselves "faster" than on others. In
addition, when the issue is highly salient or important to the message
recipients/evaluators, or when the issue is in the recipients' expertise
domain, individuals are likely to process the media messages faster or
more
automatically and less deeply. In this case, stereotypic thinking is
likely to occur. Individuals are thus likely to rely on simple cues to
make
decisions. The stereotype activated during the information processing
about general people who are generally viewed as being passive and
gullible
results in the larger disparity between the estimated media effects on the
self and on others. Although this reasoning is consistent with previous
findings suggesting that knowledge can increase the magnitude of
third-person effect, but the question of whether experts process
information relevant to their expertise faster and less deeply and estimate
the effects on both themselves and others faster than novices requires
further investigations and deserves future attention.
Self-Schemata and the Third-Person Effect
The concept of self-schemata is relatively new in social psychology. In
1977, Markus suggested that internal cognitive structures which
allowed the
individual to process the information can apparently influence the
processing of information about ourselves. She therefore developed this
construct called "self-schemata" which was defined as "cognitive
generalizations about the self, derived from past experience, that organize
and guide the processing of self-related information contained in the
individual's social experiences." Since that, she and her associates
have
published numerous studies to measure individual differences in
schematic
structuring and processing.
In Markus and Smith's 1981 study, they elaborated the definition of the
self-schemata and related this construct to a particular domain of
behavior
and the concept of others. They defined it as "generalizations or theories
about the self, developed from the repeated similar categorization and
evaluation of behavior by oneself and others, that result in a clearly
differentiated idea of the kind of person one is with respect to a
particular domain of behavior" (p. 240).
According to Markus (1977), self-schemata include cognitive
representations derived from specific events and situations involving
the
individual (e.g. "I hesitated before speaking in yesterday's
discussion
because I wasn't sure I was right, only to hear someone else make the
same
point") as well as more general representations derived from the
repeated
categorization and subsequent evaluation of the person's behavior by
himself and by others around him (e.g. I am very talkative in groups of
three or four, but shy in large gatherings," "I am generous," "I am
creative," or "I am independent").
Markus (1977) found that self-schemata facilitated the processing of
information about the self, contained easily retrievable behavioral
evidence and provided a basis for confident self-prediction of behavior on
schema-related dimensions. For example, individuals who think of
themselves
as "independent" endorse significantly more adjectives associated with the
concept of independence than individuals who do not characterize
themselves this way. In addition, these people require shorter processing
time for making judgments about words concerned with independence than
about other types of words and they are also able to provide relatively
more specific examples of independent behavior and report they are
likely
to engage in future independent behavior (Markus, 1977).
Markus (1977) classified subjects into groups that differed along the
dimensions of independence-dependence, individualist-conformist, and
leader-follower. Based on the content of their self-descriptions and the
importance they attached to such traits, Markus distinguished those,
she
called "schematics," for whom these traits were considered important
from
those, she called "aschematics," for whom these dimensions were not
important.
Markus (1977) found that people classified as schematics categorized
themselves more quickly on schema-consistent dimensions than on
schema-inconsistent or irrelevant dimensions, and that schematics were able
to list more examples of schema-consistent behaviors than aschematics.
These results demonstrate the impact of self-schemas on cognitive
processing. Similar results were obtained in a subsequent study using the
Bem Sex Role Inventory to differentiate schematics from aschematics on
the
dimension of gender identification (Markus, Crane, Bernstein, &
Siladi,
1982).
In the area of the third-person effect, so far, none of the research has
examined the impact of self-schemata on the dimensions of
independence/dependence, leader/follower, and
individualistic/conformist on
the media message processing or on the effect estimation processes. Most
of the third-person effect studies have provided supportive evidence
about
the impact of education on the magnitude of the third-person effect.
Applying the mechanisms of self-schemata specified by Markus to account
for
the third-person effect, we can explain that higher educated people
characterize themselves as experts or being more intelligent, thus when
they are asked to estimate the relative media effects on themselves and
on
others, their self-schemata on intelligence or other expertise domains
are
activated to process the information. As a result, they tend to
overstate
the difference between the perceived media effects on themselves and
on
others. However, although previous studies demonstrated that the
magnitude
of the third-person effect was positively correlated to education or
knowledge, the question of what higher-educated people or experts think
about themselves while processing information and estimating message
effects remains unanswered. Do they think of themselves as experts? What
dimensions of self-schemata are activated when they process the media
messages and estimate the relative effects on themselves and on others?
How
these different dimensions of self-schemata affect the occurrence or the
magnitude of the third-person effect? These questions have not yet
been
examined in this area and require further inquiry.
Moreover, Markus (1977) noted that self-schemata could facilitate the
information processing about self on schema-related dimensions.
Accordingly, we can hypothesize that, in the third-person effect,
higher-educated persons or experts require shorter processing time for
making the judgments in the domain of their specificality. In addition,
they think themselves more likely to engage in future intellectual
behaviors, resulting in the perception of knowledge accumulation. This
perception of increasing knowledge gap between themselves and other
ordinary people is likely to exert an addictive impact on the disparity
between the perceived media effects on themselves and on others.
Further
studies are needed to test these assumptions.
Moreover, since individuals prefer to be perceived to own some traits they
consider important or unique to identify themselves, they tend to perceive
others or tend to think about others in self-schemata relevant domains
(Markus & Smith, 1981). In other words, the schema provides a framework
with which stimulus input can be interpreted. Without this framework,
certain aspects of the stimulus may not be attended to at all. Thus, a
person who is aschematic with respect to media bias may not notice the
bias
revealed in the media coverage and, as a result, the third-person effect
cannot occur. Moreover, individuals usually develop self-schemata in
those
areas that are important to them and about which they have strong
preferences (Markus & Smith, 1981). If an individual views independence as
an important trait, he/she is likely to use this trait to evaluate
other
people than aschematics. Accordingly, in the third-person effect,
individuals who are experts in their schematic domains use their expertise
as an criterion to judge other people's ability or performance. During
the
information processing, their schematic trait--expertise--is made
salient
and, as a result, they can respond faster and are quite confident of
their
judgments. Comparatively, unless the person to-be-perceived is viewed
as an
expert, he/she will be evaluated less favorably in the schematic domains.
Conclusion
In considering the role of the self in the third-person effect, this paper
proposes to conceptualize the self from a social psychological
perspective. The approach outlined in this paper emphasizes the
motivational and cognitive aspects of the self. The author argues that the
conceptualization of the self from this perspective is beneficial to
understand the psychological mechanisms underlying the third-person effect
phenomenon.
Although previous third-person effect studies, with an attempt to explain
the processes by which this effect is generated, have examined the
influence of various contingent variables on the occurrence of the
third-person effect, these factors are limited to explain the differences
between the perceived media effects on the self and on others. The
processes by which these factors affect the media message perception or
person perception (both self-perception and others-perception) still
remain
unclarified.
This paper thus examines the roles of self-concept, self-schemata and
self-esteem in influencing the occurrence or the magnitude of the
third-person effect. It is suggested that the self during the media effect
estimation process is viewed as an object, not an active agent; a
content
of what is known, not a knower. Also, the concept of the self is based
on
the interactions with other people or with the world. Without social
interaction, third-person effect is unlikely to occur.
Furthermore, the author suggests two ways individuals use to maintain
their self-esteem and these two ways can shed some light on whether the
third-person effect results from overestimation of media effects on
others
or from underestimation of media effects on the self. During the
information processing, if the cognitive activities focus on the uniqueness
of the self, individuals tend to underestimate media effects on
themselves. If the cognitive activities focus on other people's ability or
knowledge, individuals tend to overestimate the media effects on other
people. It is emphasized that these two processes are not dichotomous.
Actually, they can co-occur, but future research may look at which
process
dominates over the other, resulting in the overestimation or
underestimation of media effects.
This paper also suggests to apply Markus' concept of self-schemata to
account for the formation of the third-person effect. Scholars suggest
that
self-schemata provide a framework with which stimulus input can be
interpreted and facilitate information processing about the self.
Third-person effect theorists have never examined "what is me." The process
by which the individual's thought and feelings about him/herself in
particular domains influence his/her media message processing and decision
making has been overlooked by third-person effect theorists.
Based on the arguments presented in this paper, it is notable that
research dealing with the third-person effect requires to take a step
further to examine the role of the self in influencing the occurrence or
the magnitude of the third-person effect. To conclude, this paper
proposes
that research could proceed in the following directions:
1. Future research could look at the relationship between various
personality traits and the third-person effect: what type of personality is
more likely to lead to the overstated difference between media effects on
the self and on others. Previous studies have proposed the self-esteem
motive, but this motive has never been empirically examined. Also, some
other personality traits such as social desirability, sense of morality
and
self-efficacy could be explored.
2. Future research could compare the processing time higher educated
people require to estimate the media effects on themselves to the time
they
require on others: Whether they require shorter processing time for making
the judgments about themselves than on others. In addition, future
research could compare different processing times highly-educated people or
experts require to estimate media effects on different others--campus
students, state residents, community, and general public. The processing
time required is assumed to increase as the target becomes more
distant or
remote to evaluators.
3. Future research could compare the processing times used by higher
educated people or experts and by lower educated people or novices to
estimate the media effects on both themselves and on others. This paper
suggests that experts should require less time to make estimation
judgments
than novices if the content of media message is within the domain of
expertise.
4. Future research could look at the different dimensions of self-schemata
and examine how these various dimensions interact with the occurrence or
the magnitude of the third-person effect. Markus and her associates
focus
on the dimensions of independence, creativity and leadership. Future
research could expand these dimensions. In addition, although previous
studies found that the third-person effect is more likely to occur if
the
media message is negative with harmful outcomes, it is likely that
differen
t dimensions of self-schemata make individuals sensitive to different
types
of media messages or make them more attentive to some certain aspects of
the media content. Thus, future research may look at how different
dimensions of self-schemata interact with different types of media content
in leading to the third-person effect.
5. Although the social or cultural influence on the perceptions of media
content and different persons is not the major concern of this paper,
social or cultural differences may differentially affect the occurrence
or
the intensity of the third-person effect. Future research could
conduct a
cross-cultural study to examine if the same media content results in
different magnitudes of the third-person effect across cultures. In
addition, with the recognition of the fact that the same person may be
perceived differently across cultures, future research may examine if
the
different perceptions of the same "others" across cultures result in
different magnitudes of the third-person effect.
References
Arkin, R. M., Appelman, A. J., Burger, J. M. (1980). Social anxiety,
self-preservation, and the self-serving bias in causal attribution.
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 38:23:35.
Aronson, E. (1968). Dissonance theory: progress and problems. In R. P.
Abelson et al (Eds.), Theories of Cognitive Consistency: A Sourcebook.
Chicago: Rand McNally.
Aronson, E., & Mettee, D. (1968). Dishonest behavior as a function of
differential levels of induced self-esteem. Journal of Personality and
Social Psychology, 9, 121-127.
Bandura, A. (1977). Self-efficacy: toward a unifying theory of behavioral
change. Psychology Review, 84:191-215.
Bem, D. J. (1972). Self-perception theory. In L. Berkowitz (Ed.), Advances
in Experimental Social Psychology, vol. 6. NY: Academic.
Bowerman, W. R. (1978). Subjective Competence: the structure process, and
functioning on self- referent causal attribution; Journal of
Theoretical
Social Behavior, 8:45-77.
Bradley, G. W. (1978). Self-serving biases in the attribution process: a
reexamination of the fact or fiction question. Journal of Personality
and
Social Psychology, 36:56-71.
Bramel, D. (1968). Dissonance, expectation and the self. In R. P. Abelson
et al. (Eds.). Theories of Cognitive Consistency. Chicago: Rand
McNally.
Brissett, D. (1972). Toward a clarification of self-esteem. Psychiatry,
35:255-63.
Cohen, J. and R. G. Davis. (1991). Third-person effects and the
differential impact in negative political advertising. Journalism
Quarterly, 68(4):680-688.
Cohen, J., D. Mutz, V. Price and A. Gunther. (1988). Perceived impact of
defamation: an experiment on third-person effects. Public Opinion
Quarterly, 52(2):161-173.
Cooley, C. H. (1902). Human Nature and the Social Order. New York: Charles
Scribner's Sons.
Coombs, R. (1969). Social participation, self-concept, and interpersonal
valuation. sociometry, 32, 273-286.
Cooper, J. & Duncan, B. (1971). Cognitive dissonance as a function of
self-esteem and logical inconsistency, Journal of Personality, 39,
289-302.
Davison, W. P. (1983). The third-person effect in communication. Public
Opinion Quarterly, 47:1-15.
Dittes, J. (1959). Attractiveness of group as function of self-esteem and
acceptance by group. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 59,
77-82.
Epstein, S. (1973). The self-concept revised: Or a theory of a theory.
American Psychologist, 28, 404-416.
Fiske, S. T., Linville, P. W. (1980). What does the schema concept buy us?
Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 6, 543-557.
Fiske, S. & Taylor, S. E., (1984). Social cognition. Reading, MA:
Addison-Wesley.
Fitch, G. (1970). Effect of self-esteem, perceived performance, and choice
on causal attribution. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology,
16,
311-315.
Franks, D. D., Marolla, J. (1976). Efficacious action and social approval
as interacting dimensions of self-esteem: A tentative formulation
through
construct validation. Sociometry, 39:324-41.
Gecas, V. (1971). Parental behavior and dimensions of adolescent
self-evaluation. Sociometry, 34:466-82.
Gecas, V. (1982). The self-concept. Annual Reviews of Sociology. 8:1-33.
Gergen, K., & Bauer, R. (1967). Interactive effects of self-esteem and task
difficulty on social conformity. Journal of Personality and Social
Psychology, 6, 16-22.
Goldings, H. J. (1954). On the avowal and projection of happiness. Journal
of Personality, 25, 47-50.
Graf, R., & Hearne, L. (1970). Behavior in a mixed motive game as a
function of induced self- esteem. Perceptual and Motor Skills, 31, 511-517.
Greenwald., A. G., & Ronis, D. L. (1978). Twenty years of cognitive
dissonance: case study of the evolution of a theory. Psychology Review,
85: 53-57.
Gunther, A. (1991). What we think others think: cause and consequence in
the third-person effect. Communication Research, 18(3):355-372.
Gunther, A. C. and P. Mundy. (1993). Biased optimism and the third-person
effect. Journalism Quarterly, 70(1): 58-67.
Gunther, A. C. and E. Thorson. (1992). Perceived persuasive effects of
product commercials and public service announcements: third-person
effects
in new domains. Communication Research, 19(5):574-596.
Hales, S. (1980). A Developmental Model of Self-Esteem Based on Competence
and Moral Behavior: A Longitudinal and Cross-Sectional Analysis.
Ph.D.
Thesis. University of California, Berkeley.
Hastie, R. (1981). Schematic principles of human memory. In E. T. Higgins,
C. A. Herman, & M. P. Zanna (Eds.), Social cognition: The Ontario
Symposium (Vol. 1, pp. 39-88). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
James, W. (1890). Principles of Psychology. NY: Wiley.
James, W. (1892). Psychology: The Briefer Course. New York: Henry Holt.
Kelley, G. A. (1955). The psychology of personal construct (Vol. I). New
York: W. W. Norton & Co.
Landman, J., & Manis, M. (1983). Social cognition: Some historical and
theoretical perspectives. In L. Berkowitz (Ed.), Advances in
experimental
social psychology (Vol. 16, pp. 49-123). New York: Academic Press.
Lasorsa, D. L. (1989). Real and perceived effect of 'Amerika'. Journalism
Quarterly, 66:373- 378.
Leonard, R. (1973). Self-concept as a factor in the similarity-attraction
paradigm. Proceeding of the 81st American Psychological Association
Convention, 8, 199-200.
Markus, H. (1977). Self-schemata and processing information about the self.
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 35, 63-78.
Markus, H., Crane, M., Bernstein, S., & Siladi, M. (1982). Self-schemas and
gender. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 42, 38-50.
Markus, H., and Sentis, K. (1982). The self in social information
processing. In J. Suls (Ed.), Psychological perspectives on the self (Vol.
1, pp. 41-70). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
Markus, H., & Smith, J. (1981). The influence of self-schemas on the
perception of others. In N. Cantor & J. Kihlstrom (Ed.), Personality,
cognition and social interaction (pp. 233-262). Hillsdale, New Jersey:
Erlbaum.
McMillen, D. L., & Reynolds, J. (1969). Self-esteem and the effectiveness
of reconciliation techniques following an argument. Psychonomic
Science,
17, 208-209.
Mead, G. H. (1934). Mind, Self, and Society. Chicago: University of Chicago
Press.
Mead, g. H. (1956). The social psychology of George Herbert Mead. (A.
Strauss, ed.). Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Mead, G. H. (1981). Self as social object. In G. P. Stone & H. A. Faberman
(Eds.). Social psychology through symbolic interaction (2nd edition,
pp.
175-178). New York: Wiley.
Morgan, D. L., & Schwalbe, M. L. (1990). Mind and self in society: Linking
social structure and social cognition. Social Psychology Quarterly,
53(2),
148-164.
Pepitone, a., Faucheux, C., Cesa-Bianchi, M., Iacono, G., Asprea, A.,
Moscovici, S., Magistretti, G., & Villone, G. (1967). The role of
self-esteem in competitive choice behavior. International Journal of
Psychology, 2, 147-159.
Perloff, R. M. (1989). Ego-involvement and the third-person effect of
televised news coverage. Communication Research, 16(2):236-262.
Rokeach, M. (1973). The Nature of Human Values. New York:Free Press.
Rosenberg, M. (1979). Conceiving the Self, New York: Basic Books.
Ross, M., & Fletcher, G. J. O. (1985). Attribution and social perception.
In G. Lindzey & E. Aronson (Eds.), The handbook of social psychology
(Vol.
2, pp. 73-122). New York: Random House.
Sarbin, T. R. (1954). Role theory. In G. Lindzey (Ed.), Handbook of social
psychology (Vol. I). Cambridge, MA: Addison-Wesley.
Schalon, C. (1968). Effect of self-esteem upon performance following
failure stress. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 32, 497.
Sherif, M., & Hovland, C. I. (1961). Social judgment: Assimilation and
contrast effects in communication and attitude change. New Haven: Yale
University Press.
Shibutani, T. (1961). Society and Personality. Englewook Cliffs, NJ:
Printice-Hall.
Silverman, I., Ford, L., & Morganti, J. (1966). Inter-related effects of
social desirability, sex, self- esteem, and simplexity of argument on
persuasibility. Journal of Personality, 34, 555-568.
Smith, M. B. (1978). Perspective on selfhood. American Psychology,
33:1053-63.
Taylor, s. E., & Crocker, J. (1981). Schematic bases of social information
processing. In E. T. Higgins, C. A. Herman, & M. P. Zanna (Eds.),
Social
cognition: The Ontario Symposium. (pp. 89-134). Hillsdale, NJ:
Erlbaum.
Tiedge, J. T., A. Silverblatt, M. J. Havice and R. Rosenfeld. (1991).
Discrepancy between perceived first-person and perceived third-person
mass
media effects. Journalism Quarterly, 68:141-154.
Tesser, A., & Campbell, J. (1982). Self-definition and self-evaluation
maintenance. In J. Suls & A. G. Greenwald (Eds.), Psychological
perspectives on the self (Vol, 2, pp. 1-31). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
Vallacher, R. R. (1980). An introduction to self theory. In D. M. Wegner, &
R. R. Vallacher (Eds.), The Self in Social Psychology. NY:Oxford
University Press.
Wells, L. (1976). Self-esteem: its conceptualization and measurement.
Beverly Hills, CA: Sage.
|
