INTRODUCTION

Prior to his 1983 article on "The Third Person Effect in Communication," W. Phillips Davison "became involved in the local phase of a national election, serving as a volunteer for his preferred candidate's organization." In reaction to receiving a leaflet of impressive quality from the opposition, Davison "procured a pile of political literature from his own party's local office and spent the rest of the day distributing it door to door." However, he found that "informal post-election analyses suggested that neither set of propaganda materials had exerted much influence on the voters." Davison asked why he had assumed that the rival candidate's leaflet would be so effective. The result of his inquiry led to his formulation of the "third person effect hypothesis." (Davison, 1983)

In his landmark article, Davison reported a series of minor and informal efforts to test whether "an individual who is exposed to a persuasive communication via the mass media will see this communication as having a greater effect on other people than on himself or herself." (1983, p. 4) Davison wrote:

Much of the testing of the third person effect has been experimental. For example, Cohen, et. al. (1988), in an experiment involving audience and jury assessments of the effects of defamatory communications, found the existence of a third person effect. They found that defamatory communications are perceived to affect others more than oneself and that as the definition of others is broadened the perceived effect on others increases. Tyler and Cook (1984) noted, in their investigation of the "impersonal impact hypothesis," that people distinguish between two possible levels of judgment, societal and personal. Based on a series of experiments, Tyler and Cook concluded:

The alternative to the third person effect most often discussed in the literature on pluralistic ignorance is the "looking glass" perception, the belief that others think the same as oneself (Taylor, 1982; O'Gorman, 1980, 1979, 1975; O'Gorman & Garry, 1976; Fields & Schuman, 1976; Breed & Ktsanes, 1961). Fields and Schuman have stated: "In the absence of strong counter-forces, a large proportion of people feel that the world they live in agrees with their own opinions on public issues" (1976, 445). The looking glass perception can have the majority accurately perceiving the position of the majority or the minority accurately perceiving the position of the minority. The latter has been termed the "false looking glass" or the "false consensus" (Scheff, 1975).

Lemert tested the looking glass phenomenon through several surveys prior to public voting on two controversial ballot measures in Oregon (1986). The study compared the accuracy of election predictions by politicians with those by members of the voting public. He found that "politicians were better than voters at predicting the outcomes of two controversial ballot measures, and they displayed fewer and weaker signs of the Looking-Glass effect" (p. 219).

The results of Cohen's (1988) defamation experiment suggested the presence of a "distance" element within the third person effect. Cohen, et. al., found that their subjects perceived that defamatory communications affected others more as the definition of others broadened. Distance, whether geographic or cultural, or the absence of distance (proximity) could explain the results of a 1990-91 study by the author. The study was based on the results of exit polling during the 1990 elections in Jersey County, Illinois. Jersey is a small rural Illinois county (population just over 20,000) located at the confluence of the Mississippi and Illinois rivers about fifty miles north of St. Louis, Missouri. The results revealed little third person effect (Williams, 1991).

Why was it that the third person effect appeared to have so little impact? It could be, as suggested by Glynn and Ostman (1988), that the effect has little societal impact. However, there is a stronger argument consistent with the pluralistic ignorance hypothesis. Pluralistic ignorance implies people do not know what others think. This may be, in fact, just the opposite in Jersey County. Jersey County is a homogeneous, close-knit, extended family community. In a prior election, the incumbent sheriff was challenged by his son-in-law's father, a retired state trooper. The county treasurer and the state's attorney for the neighboring county are brothers of the deputy chairman of the county board and former chairman of the county Democratic party. Their sister is married to another member of the county board. The brother-in-law of the county clerk has repeatedly challenged the deputy chairman of the board for his seat.

Since third person effect is a component of pluralistic ignorance, low pluralistic ignorance means low third person effect. Cohen's jury experiment indicated that the more distant the audience, the stronger the third person effect. Perhaps the opposite is true: the closer the audience, the weaker the third person effect.

The purpose of the present study is to attempt to extend our understanding of distance or proximity in the third person effect by repeating the Jersey County study in a suburban, more heterogeneous community. The earlier study, expecting to find a third-person effect, did not explore any demographic data, which should be included in subsequent research. This information should help us identify the point at which the third person effect has an impact and to determine whether the distance element of the effect is either geographic or cultural in nature.

METHOD

This study is based on results of a random telephone survey conducted in Godfrey, Illinois, over five days in mid-February 1992 of 380 Godfrey voters. Godfrey is a suburban community of over 16,000 people on the northern edge of the St. Louis metropolitan region. Part of the village overlooks the Mississippi and Missouri rivers north of St. Louis. Godfrey has the distinction of being the newest incorporated city in Illinois (Williams, 1992). The telephone survey included questions concerning public opinion and voting behavior related to the recent incorporation election. Both the incorporation vote (April 1991) and the subsequent municipal election (November 1991) were highly controversial (Williams, 1993).

The purpose of the survey was to develop a picture of the political position of the Godfrey voters, particularly with regard to the issues surrounding incorporation. The respondents were asked about their stand on incorporation, their stand on seven key issues of the time and on where they obtained their political information. They were also asked several demographic questions, including home ownership, employment status, location of employment, age, length of residency in community. There was one key limitation to the study. Only registered voters were surveyed, since only registered voters can participate in the Godfrey elections.

The Village of Godfrey lies predominantly within the 466 telephone prefix. Nearly 1100 operating numbers with the 466 prefix were dialed in order to obtain 380 valid responses. If there was no answer, two more attempts were made over the five-day period. Among the reasons that so many numbers were called -- no one answered after three attempts, household was not in the village, no registered voters in household, refusal to participate, or number was not a household.

The third person effect was tested through a series of questions about the source of political information. The questions were patterned after the questions in the original Jersey County study, though tailored to the unique media of Godfrey. Each respondent was asked how influential eight media were on their vote in the recent municipal election and how influential they thought the eight media were on the votes of other citizens. The eight media were identified through interviews with candidates for office, community activists, and long-time community residents. The media included news articles, editorials, political advertisements, and public comments (both anonymous telephone hotline and signed letters to the editor) in the regional newspaper (The Telegraph); the regional talk/news AM radio station (WBGZ, the "Big Z"); campaign literature in the mail; meeting the candidate; and talking with friends, neighbors or relatives. Each respondent was asked two questions: "On a scale of 1 to 5 (one being not influential at all and five very influential), how did each of these media influence your vote in the last Godfrey election (November 1991, for mayor and trustees?" and "On a scale of 1 to 5 (one being not influential at all and five being very influential) how do you think each of these media influenced the vote of other Godfrey residents in the last Godfrey election?" The respondents answered by selecting "very influential," "influential," "some influence," "little influence," or "no influence" on a five element Likert-scale. The results for each medium were recoded into four cell format most appropriate to third-person effect analysis. Both possible combinations, "none/little/some" (1+2+3) vs. "influence/a lot" (4+5) and "none/little" (1+2) vs. "some/influence/a lot" (3+4+5), were subjected to crosstabs analysis.

RESULTS

The looking glass effect occurs when people believe that others behave or are influenced in the same manner or to the same degree. The "true" looking glass effect occurs when the majority accurately gauges the behavior of or influence on the majority. The alternative, when the minority accurately gauges the minority, is a "false" looking glass, because it mirrors the minority, not the majority.

Pluralistic ignorance occurs when people believe that others behave or are influenced in a different manner, regardless of their majority or minority status. Conservative bias is the form of pluralistic ignorance in which people believe that others behave or are influence to a lesser degree, hence the reference to conservative. The third person effect is a form of pluralistic ignorance, specifically related to influence, in which people believe that others are influenced to a greater degree than themselves.

Therefore, those who respond that they are not influenced and others are not influenced by a certain medium are demonstrating the looking glass effect. Likewise, those who respond that they are influenced a lot and others are influenced a lot are also demonstrating the looking glass effect. The larger or majority group is the true looking glass while the smaller or minority group is the false looking glass. Those who believe others are influenced less than they are exhibit a conservative bias. Conversely, those who claim they are influenced less than others are exhibiting the third person effect. (See Table I a & b)

Regardless of how the results were recoded, every medium showed a looking glass effect, rather than the third person effect. (see Tables II & III) Recoding the "no influence," "little influence" and "some influence" (1 + 2 + 3) revealed a stronger looking glass effect than did recoding just "no influence" and "little influence" (1 + 2). The weakness of a third person effect is demonstrated when compared with the combined looking glass effect (combining both true and false or majority and minority looking glass effects). (see Table IV) The total looking glass effect, or consensus, varied from a high of 89.9% to a low of 61.4%, while the third person effect varied from a high of 34.7% to a low of 6.9%. Conservative bias never reached 10%. For every medium, using either recoding, the effect was significant (df 1, p<.001). (see Table V for chi-squares)

True looking glass is identified by majority agreement and false looking glass is identified as minority agreement. What makes this confusing is that majority agreement could shift depending on the medium or the recoding configuration. For example, the majority agreed that newspaper ads, letters to the editor, and the radio had no or little influence on themselves and others, while they agreed that newspaper editorials and news articles, the candidates, friends and relatives, and campaign literature had some or a lot of influence. Thus, the true looking glass effect does not tell us whether a medium had influence or not, but that the respondents were is agreement about the medium's influence. When the results were recoded to combine "some influence" with little or no influence, the respondents agreed that all the media, with the exception of friends, had little, some or no influence. They also agreed that friends and relatives had a lot of influence. With few exceptions, the false looking glass effect, in which a minority agrees with a minority, showed weaker influence than the third person effect. (see Tables II & III)

These results were more consistent than the Jersey County results, in which the true looking glass effect was demonstrated for five of the media and third person effect was demonstrated for the other five of the media. The predominant effect for eight of the media, evenly split between true looking glass and third person, was indicated by only a plurality of the respondents. When both true and false looking glass effects were combined, one medium still revealed a third person effect. In Godfrey, there was no indication of a third person effect. Every medium revealed a true looking glass effect by at least a substantial plurality, if not solid majority, of the respondents.

DISCUSSION

Contrary to expectation, even in this demographically more heterogeneous community, the author found little evidence of a third person effect. If fact, as noted above, the study revealed weaker third person effect and stronger looking glass effect than did the earlier Jersey County study. There are three possible explanations. Like the earlier study, there was little geographic distance. The geographic distance is reduced by the nature of the local political media. The community was served by only two local media (another newspaper has since been created) -- a regional newspaper and an AM talk/news radio station. Although key sources of political information, respondents rated their influence low.

Although there appears to be greater demographic diversity in the present community (for example, federal census data shows a greater percentage of minorities), the population is still fairly homogeneous. Thus, there is little cultural distance.

Finally, the study followed a bruising and extensively reported incorporation battle and initial municipal elections (with 11 people running for mayor). The intensity of the two campaigns, within seven months of each other, may have heightened voter awareness of others' opinions. Heavy, sustained news coverage and public discussion, including public meetings and radio call-in shows, could reduce pluralistic ignorance. Breed and Ktsanes (1961) have suggested that pluralistic ignorance on an issue is reduced as media coverage of the issue is increased. This study followed the municipal election by only three months.

Of course, distance may not play a role in the third person effect. However, these results do not necessarily discount the role of distance -- either geographic or cultural. Instead, the study needs to be repeated in ever-more heterogeneous communities. Additionally, such a study could be conducted before and after a media campaign in order to assess its impact on pluralistic ignorance and third-person effect.

HOW INFLUENCES ME

None	Some or A Lot
1. Looking Glass (false)  2. Third Person Effect	4. Conservative Bias  3. Looking Glass

 

1 + 3 = looking glass effect

2 + 4 = pluralistic ignorance

 HOW INFLUENCES ME

None	Some or A Lot
1. Looking Glass (false)  2. Third Person Effect	4. Conservative Bias  3. Looking Glass

 
 

1 + 3 = looking glass effect

2 + 4 = pluralistic ignorance
 

 
 

SOURCE OF INFLUENCE	LOOKING GLASS	THIRD PERSON	LOOKING GLASS-F	CONSERV. BIAS
Local radio station	85.2%	6.9%	4.7%	3.2%
Regional newspaper, ads	78.4	12.4	5.2	4.1
Regional newspaper, letters	76.7	13.0	6.8	3.4
Regional newspaper, editorials	67.2	17.2	9.3	6.2
Literature by mail	60.4	16.1	14.7	8.8
Regional newspaper, news	57.1	19.3	16.9	6.6
Friends	49.7	14.5	26.7	9.1
Political candidates	38.7	17.4	34.5	9.4

 

(1+2 v. 3+4+5 recode given first; 1+2+3 v. 4+5 recode given in parens)

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