The third-person effects and susceptibility to persuasion principles in advertisement

Abstract

This investigation has several main objectives: 1) to determine whether the third-person effect (TRE) (Gunther & Thorson 1992;Youn, Faber, & Shah, 2000) can be achieved through advertising messages; 2) to identify which strategies for persuasive social influence from P. Cialdini (Cialdini, 2001-2021) help to enhance the third-person effect (TRE) among advertising consumers; 3) to find some causal relationships between susceptibility to persuasion on Kaptein’s scale (Kaptein et al., 2012) or STPS and TRE among consumers of advertising. The results of the analysis of variance (ANOVA) showed that consumers aged 46 to 65 believed that positive the third-person effect (TRE) statements exert their influence on other age groups. When measuring the negative influence of the third-person effect (TRE), it was found that young adults aged 18 to 25 were most likely to assume that this influence was successful among other consumers, i.e. they overestimated the effects on others but not on themselves. Through regression analyses, it is found that persuasive strategies such as scarcity and social proof achieve their influence among youths, and scarcity and authority principles - among females and among other consumers (but not on themselves) when several negative strategies are combined. The research findings can serve social psychologists, behavioural psychologists, and those who protect the interests of business organizations.