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Relationships between empathy and the third-person effect

Lee, Chun-Yang
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1159472143

Abstract Details

1999, Master of Arts, Ohio State University, Journalism.
This paper discussed the relationship between the third-person effect and empathy. Empathy is one way for people to take others' perspectives into consideration. It is both an emotional response or a cognitive understanding of another's feeling or situation. The third-person effect is the inclination of people to attribute a stronger media influence on other people than on self. It was predicted that empathy would help people understand the target's situation so that they would not overestimate the message influence on others. In an experiment, drinking and fault for an accident was manipulated. In one condition, a college student was at fault, in another a truck driver was. Although the results fail to support this prediction, it has been found out that the social distance between subjects and the perceived others plays an important role in empathy and the third-person effect. The stronger third-person effects did not always occur for the more distant others, other people in Ohio, but often occurred the closer ones, other OSU students. The social distance between the targets, a closer one and a more distant one, and the perceived others, a close group and a distant group, may influence subjects' evaluation of the media effect on others. Moreover, subjects may have seen empathy for the target as media manipulation instead of a positive thing for subjects to feel under the different conditions presented. Thus, the influence that subjects perceived from the stories may have changed the valance of their empathy according to the subjects' own evaluation.
Eric Fredin (Advisor)

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Lee, C.-Y. (1999). Relationships between empathy and the third-person effect [Master's thesis, Ohio State University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1159472143

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Lee, Chun-Yang. Relationships between empathy and the third-person effect. 1999. Ohio State University, Master's thesis. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1159472143.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Lee, Chun-Yang. "Relationships between empathy and the third-person effect." Master's thesis, Ohio State University, 1999. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1159472143

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

osu1159472143
591
© 1999, all rights reserved.
This open access ETD is published by The Ohio State University and OhioLINK.