The Third Person Effect Of Product Placement On College Students In Chongqing

Since the Third Person Effect(TPE)hypothesis was proposed in 1983,many researchers have paid attention to it.Previous studies have shown that TPE is widespread in negative media information,it means that individuals believe that others are negatively influenced by media information such as pornography,violence and rumors,which is more than on self.With the broadening of the theoretical research field of TPE,some scholars put forward that TPE also exists in commercial information with persuasive intention.This study adopts questionnaire survey to explore TPE of Product Placement,as well as the relationship between the individual characteristics of the audience,media contacts,the acceptability of Product Placement and the Third Person Effect.In China,it is the first empirical research on the product placement in the field of the Third Person Effect research.In this study,800 college students in 14 colleges and universities in Chongqing were selected as effective survey samples.The results showed that Product Placement had the Third Person Effect among college students,and the respondents generally believed that others are more affected by product placement than their own.The quantitative measure of the Third Person Effect in this study is the absolute gap measurement,that is,the Third Person Perceptual Bias is the difference between “the influence on others” and “the influence on self”.According to the different reference groups,it is divided into “Refer to Specialist Perceptual Bias”,“Refer to Under-graduate Perceptual Bias” and “Refer to Post-graduate Perceptual Bias”.The significant difference between age and the Third Person Perceptual Bias was related to the reference group.The age was significantly different from the “Refer to Specialist Perceptual Bias” and “Refer to Under-graduate Perceptual Bias”,while the “Refer to Post-graduate Perceptual Bias” did not.Educational background is significantly different from the “Refer to Under-graduate Perceptual Bias”,but there is no significant difference from “Refer to Specialist Perceptual Bias” and “Refer to Post-graduate Perceptual Bias”.The frequency and length of media contacts of college students are negatively correlated with the “Refer to Specialist Perceptual Bias”,it means,the higher media exposure frequency,the lower “Refer to Specialist Perceptual Bias”;the longer media exposure time,the lower “Refer to Specialist Perceptual Bias”.The acceptability of product placement was negatively correlated with “Refer to Post-graduate Perceptual Bias”,indicating that the higher acceptability of product placement,the lower “Refer to Post-graduate Perceptual Bias”.In my opinion,the influence of all these factors on the effect of the Third Person Effect may be the result of the multi-factor interference of the reference group.In addition,this study re validated the correlation between self-esteem and the Third Person Effect follow-up behavior.The results show that the self-respect of college students is positively correlated with the support degree of media limitation,it means,the higher degree of self-respect of college students,the higher support degree of media limitation;However,college students' self-efficacy is negatively correlated with the support degree of media limitation,that is,the higher self-efficacy of college students,the lower support degree of media limitation.