Save Me Save Them Trash Talk Shows and T

DE GRUYTER MOUTON Communications 2014; 39(2): 193–214
Frederic Guerrero-Solé, Reinald Besalú and

Hibai López-González
Save me, save them! Trash talk shows and
the third-person effect
Abstract: Since Davison (1983) proposed the hypothesis regarding the Third-
Person Effect (TPE), it has been widely accepted by researchers in communica-
tion. The objective of this study is to test both perceptual and behavioral com-
ponents of TPE in Spain related to media in general, violent, pornographic, and
trash TV shows (in particular, the TV show Sálvame, Save me! in Spanish).
Relying on two different surveys, the study confirms the perceptual component
of the third-person effect for media and controversial content. Moreover, re-
spondents perceive Sálvame as the most negative content, with the majority
stating that they have tried to protect family and friends from the contents of
the program and would be in favor of censoring it.
Keywords: third-person effect, violence, pornography, Sálvame, Spain, censor-
ship
DOI 10.1515/commun-2014-0012
1 Introduction
According to Davidson’s third-person effect (TPE) hypothesis (1983), people
tend to perceive others as being more vulnerable to media effects than they
themselves would be. The TPE hypothesis can be divided into two elements:
People tend to perceive greater media effects on others than on themselves
(perceptual component) and, as a consequence, are impelled to take action
(behavioral component). Davidson’s TPE hypothesis has motivated a large
number of studies. Initially, they were mainly focused on the perceptual compo-
Frederic Guerrero-Solé, Associate Professor at the Department of Communication of the Pom-

peu Fabra University, Spain, E-mail: frederic.guerrero@upf.edu
Reinald Besalú, Research Associate at the Department of Communication of the Pompeu
Fabra University, Spain, E-mail: reinald.besalu@upf.edu
Hibai López-González, Research Associate at the Department of Communication of the Pom-
peu Fabra University, Spain, E-mail: hibai.lopez@upf.edu
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194 F. Guerrero-Solé, R. Besalú and H. López-González DE GRUYTER MOUTON
nent (TPP). Since nearly three decades, a large number of studies and experi-
ments have found support for TPP in different contexts: television drama
(Lasorsa, 1989), misogynistic pornography (Gunther, 1995), controversial adver-
tising (Shah, Faber, and Youn, 1999), news (Price and Tewksbury, 1996), televi-
sion violence (Hoffner et al., 2001; Rojas, Shah, and Faber, 1996), political ad-
vertising (Meirick, 2004), cigarette ads (Henriksen and Flora, 1999), and, more
recently, violent video games (Boyle, McLeod, and Rojas, 2008), reality shows
(Cohen and Weimann, 2008), social networking (Zhang and Daugherty, 2009),
or alcohol product placement (Shin and Kim, 2011). The hypothesis has found
support from a wide variety of subjects, indicating that it is a strong phenom-
enon. Moreover, its robustness has been confirmed regardless of question word-
ing (Perloff, 1999) or question order (Gunther, 1995; Price and Tewksbury,
1996), although some authors have doubted about their neutrality (Brosius and
Engel, 1996; Perloff, 1999). The general consensus, however, is that TPE cannot
simply be considered a methodological artifact, but rather a persistent social
judgment bias that is difficult to neutralize (David, Liu, and Myser, 2004).
2 Negative influence, social distance, and target

corollaries
TPE only emerges with undesirable media messages, and vanishes (Gunther
and Mundy, 1993) or even reverses (first-person effect) when the message is
perceived as desirable (Day, 2008; Eveland and McLeod, 1999) This is what
Gunther and Storey (2003) refer to as the negative influence corollary. Perloff
(2002), however, has criticized the ambiguity of what should be considered a
desirable message, calling for conceptual clarification. The definition of others
is another key aspect of the TPP gap. Social distance, the difference between
oneself and comparison groups, magnifies the TPP self-other discrepancy (Bro-
sius and Engel, 1996), although it is not a necessary condition for its presence
(Perloff, 1999). In some cases, scholars have failed to find support for the social
distance corollary (McLeod, Eveland, and Nathason, 1997; Meirick, 2005).
Meanwhile, McLeod, Detenber, and Eveland (2001) proposed a hypothesis re-
garding the target corollary, the perceived likelihood of exposure to a certain
message: The TPE gap will be greater if others are considered to be the targets
of a given message.
Other cognitive factors or mediating processes that can shape self-other
discrepancies include: media schemas (David et al., 2004; Perloff, 1993, 1996),
a hypodermic-needle-like theory people use in the evaluation of how media

DE GRUYTER MOUTON Save me, save them! 195
influence others; self-perceived knowledge (Atwood, 1994; Lasorsa, 1989; Pei-

ser and Peter, 2000), ego involvement (Perloff, 1989), or issue relevance (Mutz,
1989). In addition to these factors, education (Paul, Salwen, and Dupagne,
2000), age, gender, racial group, or group identity (Hoffner and Rehkoff, 2011)
have also been shown to influence TPE. One of the most relevant conclusions
about the predictors of the TPE is that people use different factors in the percep-
tion of perceived effects on others compared to perceived effects on themselves
(Eveland and McLeod, 1999; McLeod et al., 2001). Psychological explanation of
the third-person effect has been linked to ego-enhancement and optimistic bias
(Gunther and Mundy, 1993; Salwen and Dupagne, 2003); to attribution theory
and to cognitive adaption (Gunther, 1991; Rojas et al., 1996) or to cognitive
adaptation theory (Atwood, 1994).
The robustness of the TPP has oriented researchers toward the behavioral
component of the effect. Traditionally, studies of TPE behavioral components
have focused on support of censorship with regard to pornography and sexual
content (Gunther, 1995; Sun, Shen, and Pan, 2008), violent content (Gunther
and Hwa, 1996), negative political advertising (Salwen and Dupagne, 1999),
misogynistic song lyrics (McLeod et al., 1997), or unfair and misleading political
messages (Hoffner and Rehkoff, 2011). In addition to the support for censorship,
other behavioral responses studied have been: political decision-making (Per-
loff, 1996), expression of opinion (Mutz, 1989), parental mediation (Hoffner and
Buchanan, 2002), residential mobility (Tsfati and Cohen, 2003), word-of-mouth
communication via social networks (Zhang and Daugherty, 2009), or support
for the regulation of alcohol product placement in movies (Shin and Kim, 2011).
One of the most controversial questions in these studies is the relationship
between behavioral and perceptual components. In some cases, scholars have
found a weak relationship between both components (Atwood, 1994), while in
other cases, a strong link has been found (Gunther and Storey, 2003; McLeod
et al., 1997). In this sense, it seems that perceived effects on others and a belief
in the power of media messages are the only significant predictors of behavioral
outcomes (Boyle et al., 2008; Cohen and Weimann, 2008).
3 The influence of perceived influence

Gunther and Storey (2003) proposed a generalized version of TPE and the indi-
rect effects model, which they refer to as the influence of presumed influence.
According to this model, people perceive an influence of communication on
others and react to that perception, thereby changing their own attitudes or

behaviors. This framework does not require considerations about the desirabil-
ity of the perceived influence or the comparison of perceived effects on oneself
and others, and has been used in recent studies about the effects of perceived
influences in voting and politics (Cohen and Tsfati, 2009), reality shows (Cohen
and Weimann, 2008), media effects on adolescent materialism (Chia, 2010) or
the desire of women to be thin (Park, 2005). In an effort to generalize the
indirect effects model, Gunther, Bolt, Borzekowski, Liebhart and Dillard (2006)
stated that the behavioral outcomes of the influence of perceived influence are
either prevention (people try to avoid undesirable outcomes) or accommodation
(people try to adapt their behavior to perceived effects on others).
4 TPE research in Spain

Although Perloff (2002) stated that the third-person effect has emerged across
different nationality groups, little effort has been made in Spain to explore its
characteristics and consequences. As far as we know, only a few academic
papers (López-Sáez, Martínez-Rubio, and Arias, 1997; Falces, Bautista, and Sier-
ra, 2011) have been devoted to TPE, and none of them from a communication
perspective. This study represents a first step toward the introduction of the
third-person effect for the Spanish case, despite the fact that TPE is one of the
most scrutinized theories in communication studies in the 21st Century (Bryant
and Miron, 2004).
In particular, we examine the perceived influence of the talk show Sálvame
(broadcast by the private Spanish channel Telecinco from Monday to Friday,
running from 3:45 to 8:00 p.m.), a TV program in which moderators and partici-
pants use abusive, aggressive, and humiliating language, behave in a vulgar
manner, and in which people’s privacy is constantly violated. While many or-
ganizations have unsuccessfully petitioned Spanish regulators to ban it, it re-
mains one the most popular TV programs among Spaniards (share: 17.3 %, pro-
file: 31.1 % males, 68.9 % females, for the period September 2011–March 2012).
According to the Sixth report evaluating the implementation of the Code of
Self-Regulation of Television Content and Childhood (available at http://www.
tvinfancia.es, date accessed: 12 th November 2012), 116 of the 172 (67.5 %) com-
plaints received by the Committee of Self-Regulation were related to Sálvame.
The main grievances related to social behavior and polemical issues.
The present paper sets out to test the general TPE hypothesis among the
Spanish population by looking at the self-other discrepancy in the case of me-
dia in general and at what we have called controversial issues: violent and

pornographic content and Sálvame. We also analyze behavioral outcomes (ad-

vising family/friends not to watch a certain content, support for censorship)
emerging from these controversial issues.
4.2 Perceptual component

The first set of hypotheses is linked to the perceptual component of the third-
person effect. As we have already pointed out, TPP is considered a robust phe-
nomenon; nevertheless, we asked participants to evaluate the perceived effects
of media in general and of controversial content in order to test the robustness
of TPP among the Spanish population. The first set of hypotheses is as follows:
[H1a] Participants will perceive a greater influence of media on others than on

themselves.
[H1b, H1c, and H1d]

Participants will perceive a greater influence of violent content, pornog-
raphy, and Sálvame on others than on themselves.
Many studies have confirmed that there is a strong relationship between peo-
ple’s judgments about exposure and the perceived effects on themselves and
on others, although in some cases this relationship may be negative for oneself
(Boyle et al., 2008). Consequently, we pose hypotheses 2 and 3 related to the
perceived exposure and its relationship to perceived effects on others:
[H2] Participants will perceive a greater exposure to media and controversial

contents of others than of themselves.
[H3] Perceived exposure of others to media and controversial contents will be

positively related to the perceived influence of media and controversial
contents on others.
The last hypothesis related to the perceptual component refers to the level of
credulity (or skepticism) about Sálvame of oneself and others as a variable that
can be linked to ego-enhancement and optimistic bias. We argue that partici-
pants will tend to perceive that others naively believe what presenters and
guests in Sálvame say and do as if it were real, while participants will affirm
they do not believe Sálvame at all.
[H4] Participants will state a greater level of skepticism about the contents of
Sálvame for themselves than for others.

4.3 Behavioral component

The next set of hypotheses deals with the third-person effect and its relation-
ship to paternalistic attitudes such as protecting family and friends from con-
troversial contents or supporting the censorship of these contents.
[H5] Advising family/friends not to watch controversial content will be relat-

ed to the perceived influence of these issues on others.
[H6] Support for censorship of controversial content will be related to the

perceived influence of these issues on others.
5 Method
5.1 Group A
A survey of undergraduate students in advertising and communication at a
major Spanish university in Barcelona was used to collect data. Although the
use of students has been criticized because they perceive themselves as more
knowledgeable than third persons (Perloff, 1999), we have considered that giv-
en that several studies in TPE have collected data from college students (Rojas
et al., 1996; Sun et al., 2008, among many others), it is a good starting point
to compare our results with those of previous research.
Respondents were asked to answer two questionnaires: The first was relat-
ed to the perceived effects on others, and the second to the perceived effects
on themselves and the actions they would take related to specific contents.
The sample included N = 81 respondents; 21 % of them were males and
79 % females, with an average age of 20.5 years (SD = 2.96). Students rated the
perceived effects on others and on themselves within four topics: media in
general, violence, sexual content, and the trash TV talk show Sálvame as well
as the perceived exposure to these issues.
Perceived effects. The participants were asked about the level of influence
of media and controversial contents on others and on themselves. Each item
was rated on a 5-point Likert scale from 1 (no influence) to 5 (high influence).
Perceived exposure. For each of the four issues, participants were asked
about the level of exposure to media and controversial contents that they per-
ceived themselves and others to have. Each item was rated on a 5-point Likert
scale from 1 (no exposure) to 5 (high exposure). Cronbach’s Alpha reliability
coefficient was .763 for effects and exposure on others and on themselves.

Positive/negative influence. The participants were also asked about the na-
ture of the influence of controversial contents on others and on themselves (the
options were positive, negative, and neutral influence).
Level of credulity/skepticism. Participants were asked about their perception
about people’s willingness to believe what is enacted on Sálvame, and whether
they themselves believed the contents of the program are real.
Level of education. Finally, respondents were asked about their perceived
level of education of others and of themselves, ranging from 1 (very low) to 5
(very high).

Advising and supporting censorship. Participants were asked if they had ever
advised family and/or friends not to watch violence/pornography or Sálvame
(the options were Yes or No).
Censorship. Similar to advising, they were asked if they would support the
censorship of these contents (the options were No, I don’t know, and Yes).
5.3 Group B
Considering Perloff’s (1999) objections about the use of students in samples, a
second group was added to our investigation in order to compare its results
with those of group A. The participants of this second group were adults en-
rolled at a language and vocational training school in a medium-sized city in
the countryside of Spain who had no previous knowledge about communica-
tion theories. This sample included 93 respondents; 24.7 % of them were males
and 75.3 % females. Their average age in the second group was 40.1 years
(10.7). The test was conducted in December 2011, two months before the test
for group A.
Like with the group comprised of university students, the second group was
asked about perceived effects of media, violence, pornography, and Sálvame on
others and on themselves; if they had ever advised family/friends not to watch
controversial content, and their willingness to support censorship of such con-
tent.
In both groups we also asked respondents about their age, sex, level of
religiosity, and perceived level of education of others and of themselves.

6 Results
6.1 Perceptual component
The first hypotheses predicted that participants will perceive a greater influence
of media in general as well as of violence, pornography and Sálvame, in par-
ticular, on others than on themselves. The results fully confirm these hypoth-
eses (see Table 1). However, we can observe some relevant differences between
the TPP effects on those issues: People tend to think others are more influenced
by media than by controversial content, a result that is consistent with those
found by Paul, Salwen and Dupagne (2000) in their meta-analysis of the per-
ceptual component of the third-person effect. Although Perloff’s (1999) hypoth-
esis about the fact that students tend to consider themselves more knowledge-
able is supported in this study (the average level of education in group A was
2.67 for others and 3.73 for themselves, while in group B it was 2.82 for others
and 3.30 for themselves), his main hypothesis is not confirmed: Those who
had no previous knowledge about media theory (group B) tended to consider
themselves more shielded from media effects than do those who had previous
knowledge (group A). However, we can see from Table 1 that the results in
groups A and B are quite similar, despite the evident differences in their profiles
and skills. Thus, the hypothesis that respondents with a higher level of educa-
tion tend to believe that media influences others more than themselves (Will-
nat, 1996) is not confirmed in that case.
One of the most relevant findings in this study is that people tend to per-
ceive that the show Sálvame has a greater influence on others than violent or
pornographic content has. We can observe this tendency in both groups. On the
contrary, Sálvame is perceived as the content that has less influence on oneself.
Table 1: Influence of media, violence, pornography, and Sálvame on others and on oneself.
Group A Group B
Others Self Difference Others Self Difference
Influence M SD M SD M SD M SD
***
Media 4.33 .50 3.34 .69 0.99 4.02 .70 2.24 .73 1.78***
Violence 3.35 .74 2.10 .80 1.25*** 3.77 .82 1.96 .97 1.80***
Porno- 3.09 .90 1.88 .94 1.31*** 3.43 .96 1.51 .70 1.92***
graphy
Sálvame 3.89 .86 1.35 .58 2.54*** 3.93 1.13 1.29 .64 2.64***
***
p < 0.001 in t-test for related samples

Table 2: Perceived exposure to media, violence, pornography, and Sálvame (group A).
Others Self Difference
M SD M SD
Media 4.43 .63 3.47 .92 0.95***

Violence 3.57 .84 2.09 .96 1.48***
Pornography 3.21 .89 1.67 1.00 1.54***
Sálvame 4.35 .62 1.38 .66 2.97***
***
p < 0.001 in t-test for related samples
These results can be compared with those by Golan and Banning (2008). They
analyzed the influence of what they considered three controversial contents:
violence, pornography, and foul language. The perceived influence is extremely
coincident in the case of violent content (self M = 2.11 and other M = 3.35 in
their study; self M = 2.10 and other M = 3.35 in our group A), and quite similar
in the case of pornography (self M = 2.08 and other M = 3.47 in their study;
self M = 1.88 and other M = 3.09 in our group A). However, the main difference
is in the content they call foul language, which, to some extent, could be com-
pared to Sálvame. In their study, people perceive the influence of foul language
as being very similar to the perceived influence of pornography and violence
(self M = 2.09 and other M = 3.28). And, as we have already pointed out, Sálva-
me is considered to be much more influential than the other two contents (self
M = 1.35 and other M = 3.89).
Hypotheses 2 and 3 are also confirmed (see Table 2). Participants perceive
that others have more exposure media, violence, pornography, and Sálvame
than they themselves do, and the self-other discrepancies are quite similar to
those of the perceived influence in Table 1 (we did not ask about the perceived
exposure in group B). On the other hand, the data in Table 3 confirm that the
perceived exposure to media of others is related to the perceived media effects
on others (McLeod et al., 2001). The same result is found for the case of porno-
graphic content and Sálvame. However, hypothesis 3b is not confirmed: Per-
ceived exposure of others to violent content was not shown to be related to
perceived effects of violent content on others.
The target corollary (Eveland et al., 1999) states that perceived exposure
has an influence on perceived effects. McLeod et al. (2001) showed that the
target corollary only predicted the relationship between perceived exposure
and perceived influence on others, but not on the self. Moreover, Meirick (2005)
found that the target corollary does not hold for desirable messages. Our re-
sults, however, suggest that perceived exposure also predicts perceived influ-

ence on the self for non-desirable messages (Table 3). On the other hand, some
studies have proposed that people use media schemas (Price and Tewksbury,
1996) or a magic-bullet-like theory of media effects (Eveland and McLeod, 1999)
to evaluate the perceived influence on others. Our findings show that despite
the fact that people may employ different processes when estimating the effects
on others and on oneself (Meirick, 2005), perceived exposure can also be a
predictor of perceived influence on the self, at least in the case of undesirable
messages.
Respondents tended to perceive violent content as having a negative effect
on others (83.5 %), and no effect on the self; nonetheless, in the case of porno-
graphic content, only 44.6 % of the respondents answered that it had a negative
influence on others, while Sálvame is considered to be the most negative con-
tent (92.2 %). Scholars have already found strong TPP in negative or unde-
sir£able media content such as violence and pornography (Golan, 2002; Gun-
ther, 1995; Hoffner and Buchanan, 2002; Rojas et al., 1996; Sun et al., 2008).
Studies suggest that the more negatively the message is perceived, the stronger
the TPP (Eveland and McLeod, 1999). Our results are fully consistent with this
hypothesis: As we have seen in Table 1, Sálvame is perceived as the content
which is the most influential on others, followed by violence and then pornog-
raphy. Our results also show that, regardless of the perception that Sálvame
has the most negative influence on others, people perceived violence as having
the most negative influence on themselves.
7 The level of credulity

As we have already pointed out, many scholars (Eveland and McLeod, 1999;
Gunther and Hwa, 1996; Gunther and Mundy, 1993; Henriksen and Flora, 1999;
McLeod et al., 2001) have suggested a linkage between the third-person effect
and ego-enhancement (or optimistic bias, a very similar concept), that is, peo-
ple’s tendency to see themselves as smarter than others. The main consequence
of this psychological process is the reinforcing of self-esteem. Salwen and Du-
pagne (2003) stated that “researchers have conducted little empirical research
to confirm whether optimistic bias accounts for third-person perception”
(p. 59). For these authors, the third-person effect can be just a case study of
optimistic bias. Although the analysis of this linkage is not the main objective
of our study, we asked the participants in groups A and B about the level of
credulity/skepticism about the contents of Sálvame for others and for them-
selves. This question can be easily related to ego-enhancement: While people

Table 3: Correlations between influence, exposure, and level of credulity (group A).
DE GRUYTER MOUTON
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17
Influence of media
(others) (1)
Influence of media .32**
(self) (2)
Influence of violence .11 .02
(others) (3)
Influence of violence −.14 .11 .34**
(self) (4)
Influence of pornog- −.08 .03 .39** .30**
raphy (others) (5)

Influence of pornog- −.25* .01 .13 .55** .43**

raphy (self) (6)
Influence of Sálva- .19 .13 .18 .20 .27* .11
me (others) (7)
Influence of Sálva- −.20 .18 .05 .14 .23* .34** .08

me (self) (8)
Save me, save them!

Exposure to media .26* .30** .14 .14 .11 .07 .18 −.00
(others) (9)
Exposure to media .11 .50** −.040 .02 .03 .05 −.04 .07 .23*
(self) (10)
Exposure to violence −.03 .08 .16 .25* .20 .15 .31** .06 .07 .14
(others) (11)
Exposure to violence −.05 −.12 .05 .43** .19 .41** .21 .01 .23* .09 .30**
(self) (12)
Exposure to pornog- −.18 −.07 .16 .20 .62** .51** .11 .08 .10 .02 .38** .24*
203
raphy (others) (13)
Table 3: Continued
204
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17
* ** ** ** **
Exposure to pornog- −.15 .02 −.02 .23 .31 .61 −.06 .10 .11 .20 .10 .42 .42
raphy (self) (14)
F. Guerrero-Solé, R. Besalú and H. López-González DE GRUYTER MOUTON

Exposure to Sálva- .08 .19 .10 .16 .15 .10 .43** .05 .19 −.00 .37** .20 .25* −.01
me (others) (15)
Exposure to Sálva- −.09 .18 .02 .07 .03 .22 −.01 .60** .14 .13 .17 .07 .14 .03 .07
me (self) (16)
Level of credulity .14 −.05 .20 .09 .34** .01 .19 −.18 .07 −.08 .01 .02 .21 −.01 .13 −.12
(others) (17)
Level of credulity .06 .18 −.09 −.19 .05 −.05 −.04 .54** .11 .11 −.12 −.10 .01 −.13 .00 .47** .07
(self) (18)
* **
p < 0.05; p < 0.01
Table 4: Correlations between influence of media, violence, pornography, Sálvame, and level of credulity (group B).
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
Influence of Media (others) (1)

Influence of Media (self) (2) .10
Influence of Violence (others) (3) .30** .04
Influence of Violence (self) (4) .02 .17 .10
Influence of Pornography (others) (5) .28* .20 .53** −.04
Influence of Pornography (self) (6) .00 .09 −.06 .43** −.08
Influence of Sálvame (others) (7) .31** .15 .34** −.17 .31** −.15
Influence of Sálvame (self) (8) .04 .29** −.08 .23* −.05 .08 .21*
Level of credulity (others) (9) .27* .33** .30** .21* .25* .11 .22* .16
Level of credulity (self) (10) −.01 .30** .03 .09 −.11 .11 .12 .57** .16
* **
p < 0.05; p < 0.01
may tend to not believe what is enacted on TV, they may however perceive
others to believe it. As a consequence, they feel smarter than others because
they are able to see through the fiction in Sálvame, something which others are
unable to do. In addition, we may be tempted to consider that participants in
group A will see themselves as more skeptical than participants in group B,
because they have a deeper knowledge about how media work. However, the
results show that participants in both groups tended to answer that they did
not believe in what was portrayed on Sálvame. The main difference is that
communication students perceived others as more credulous (M = 3.9 (.74) for
the others and M = 1.2 (.53) for the self) than non-students did (M = 3.39 (.59)
for others and M = 1.26 (.61) for the self), confirming hypothesis 4. These results
suggest that, despite their level of education, people are skeptical about the
reality of Sálvame; on the contrary, the deeper the knowledge people have of
media, the more they considered others to believe Salvame’s contents. In addi-
tion, we can observe a correlation between perceived influence of Sálvame on
others and on themselves and the level of credulity (Tables 3 and 4). Never-
theless, this correlation is stronger in the case of the self than in that of others.

The behavioral component of the third-person effect hypothesizes that self-
other discrepancies on media impact lead people to act. Studies on the behav-
ioral component of the third-person effect have fundamentally focused on the
support for restrictions or censorship of media messages (Gunther, 1995; Hoff-
ner and Buchanan, 2002; Sun et al., 2008) and other behavioral responses such
as parental mediation (Hoffner and Buchanan, 2002) or residential mobility
(Tsfati and Cohen, 2003). Taking into account that no other study in Spain
has been devoted to this effect, and considering the possible differences in
comparison to other previous studies, we also asked respondents about their
support for censoring controversial contents as well as whether they had at-
tempted to shield and or advise family and friends not to watch these kinds of
television shows. We will also demonstrate the relationship between the behav-
ioral and the perceptual components.
7.2 Advising
The results show that, overall, people advise family/friends not to watch Sálva-
me. 77.8 % of the respondents in group A indicated having advised family/

friends not to view the show. In contrast, few respondents indicated having
advised family/friends not to watch violent or pornographic contents (35.8 %
and 12.3 %, respectively). These results would lead us to think that the more
negative and influential a message is perceived to be, the more people tend to
advise others not to watch them. However, advising family/friends not to watch
Sálvame had no significant correlation with its perceived influence on others:
People tend to advise family/friends not to watch Sálvame regardless of the
influence perceived on others. The same happens in the case of violence and
pornography. Thus, hypothesis 5 is not confirmed in this case.
Results for group B show that people in this sample were more likely to
advise family/friends not to watch violent programs and Sálvame (53.8 % in
both cases), while they were more reluctant to advise others not to watch por-
nographic content (63 %).
7.3 Support for censorship

As in the previous case, the results show that people in group A were more
likely to support censoring Sálvame (58 % supported censoring the program).
In addition to Sálvame, respondents were also likely to support the censorship
of violence (42 %) and, to a lesser degree, pornography (23.5 %). We may add
that these results are also consistent with the perception of the negative influ-
ence of the issues. Results for group B also show that people in this sample are
more likely to support censorship of violent (55 %) and pornographic (50.5 %)
contents than participants in group A; their support for censorship of violent
content, pornography, and Sálvame (55.9 %) is nearly the same.
Many authors have found that as the self-other discrepancy increases, peo-
ple are more likely to express support for censorship (Gunther, 1995; McLeod
et al., 1997; Rojas et al., 1996). Our sample also shows this relationship: In both
groups A and B there is a strong correlation between the self-other discrepan-
cy and the willingness to censor in the case of Sálvame (.24, p < 0.01 and .29,
p < 0.01, respectively). In group B there is also a strong correlation between
the self-other discrepancy and the willingness to censor violence (.47, p < .01).
Moreover, we can observe a strong negative correlation between the perceived
influence of Sálvame on the self and the willingness to censor Sálvame in both
groups of participants (Table 5).
We also analyzed the relationship between others’ level of credulity and
people’s willingness to censor Sálvame. The results show a correlation (.435,
p < 0.05) between them in group A (students), while in group B we found no
meaningful relationship. This relationship can be linked to paternalism and the

Table 5: Behavioral component. Correlations between influence and willingness to censor

controversial contents (groups A and B).
3 4 5 6 7 8 19 20
Group A
Censor violence (19) .02 −.18 .02 −.21 .01 .03
Censor pornography (20) .04 .17 .02 −.15 .09 −.05 .29*
Censor Sálvame (21) .00 .12 .12 −.07 .00 −.38** .05 .24*
Group B
Censor violence (19) .19 −.43** .01 −.27* −.05 −.22*
Censor pornography (20) .01 −.15 .07 −.27* −.02 .01 .20
Censor Sálvame (21) .05 −.03 .029 .01 .05 −.44** .25* .12
* **
p < 0.05; p < 0.01
belief that the more people consider themselves as superior to others, the more
they support censorship. As we have already stated, in the case of communica-
tion students, they may feel superior or more confident and efficient than oth-
ers in performing the task of unmasking the fabrications on Sálvame because
they know what they are talking about. Thus, the level of paternalism can be
linked to the perception that the effects of media on others follow a hypoder-
mic-needle pattern, i. e., media has a direct and powerful effect on them.
Finally, we ran multiple regression analyses in both groups, using the de-
mographic variables (age, gender, level of education, and religiosity) as the
independent variables, and the support to censor violence, pornography, and
Sálvame as the respective dependent variables. In group A we found that the
independent variables predicted the support to censor violence (F(4,60) =
5.384; p < .001), but the only coefficient statistically significant was that of
gender (B = .816; t = 3.636; p < .001). In the case of pornography, we found no
significant relationships. In group B we found that the model did not fit at all
our data, although we did find a significant relationships between the support
to censor pornography and the level of religiosity (B = .128; t = 2.169; p < .05).
We found no significant relationships for violence. We also compared the
means of the support for censoring violence and pornography by gender and
group (Table 6), and found that both in groups A and B women were more
likely to support censorship of violent and pornographic content. However, one
interesting result is that the differences between the support to censor violence
and pornography by women and men are significantly higher in group A
(young students) than in group B (adult non-students). While young students
are less likely to support censorship than adult non-students, and women are
more likely to support censorship than men, young men are significantly less

Table 6: Support for censorship of violent and pornographic content by gender and group.
Group A Group B
M SD M SD
Censor violent content (women and men) 2.19 .78 2.51 .63
Censor violent content (women) 2.34 .73 2.52 .66
Censor violent content (men) 1.63 .72 2.42 .51
Censor violent content (difference women/men) .71 .10
Censor pornography (women and men) 1.83 .78 2.47 .59
Censor pornography (women) 1.93 .79 2.50 .59
Censor pornography (men) 1.44 .63 2.37 .60
Censor pornography (difference women/men) .49 .13
likely to support censorship of violence and pornography. These results are

congruent with those obtained when we join groups A and B and run a multi-
ple regression analysis: In the case of violence (R2 = .138; F(4,135) = 5.395;
p < .001), gender is a strong predictor of support for censorship (B = .546; t =
3.661; p < 001), while in the case of pornography (R2 = .212; F(4,135) = 9.078;
p < .001), gender (B = .326; t = 2.244; p < .05), age (B = .016; t = 2.953; p < .05)
and religiosity (B = .175; t = 3.031; p < .05) can partially explain the support for
censorship. The multiple regression analysis for support to censor Sálvame did
not provide us with significant results.
8 Discussion
Similar to many previous works, this study supports both the perceptual and
the behavioral components of the third-person effect. For over 30 years, schol-
ars have studied the third-person effect, showing that its perceptual component
is virtually a universal phenomenon, especially when messages are perceived
as negative and socially undesirable. This study confirms TPP for controversial
contents in Spain. Moreover, it also confirms the thesis that the third-person
effect is not an artifact of a particular group of people (Huh, Delorme, and Reid,
2004), as in both student and non-student groups TPP was similarly supported.
The study has also shown that people perceive that others have a greater expo-
sure to media and controversial contents than they themselves have, and that
perceived exposure and perceived influence are strongly correlated, confirming
the target corollary.
At first, we did not observe clear differences between the third-person effect
in communication students and people who had never had any exposure to

communication theories. However, a deeper analysis of our data has shown

that media students and people in general use different mechanisms to evalu-
ate the perceived influence of media. Participants in group B tended to relate
the influence of media in general on others with the influence of violence (.293;
p < 0.01), pornography (.256; p < 0.05), and Sálvame (.313; p < 0.01), while we
found no correlation in the case of group A.
We have also observed significant differences in the behavioral component
of the third-person effect between students and non-students. Non-students are
more likely to advise and support censorship of violent and pornographic con-
tent, while students tend to be more likely to advise family/friends not to watch
Sálvame. The contrast is particularly evident in the case of pornographic con-
tent: Students do not support censoring pornography at all and practically none
of them indicated having advised family/friends not to watch pornographic
content. We must note that the perceived effects of pornography may vary with
the gender of participants (Sun et al., 2008), and that the willingness to censor
has been found to be positively associated with age and religiosity, among
other variables (see Rojas et al., 1996). In line with these findings, our results
have shown that the willingness to censor violence and pornography are posi-
tively related to age, gender, and level of religiosity. Thus, socio-demographic
variables are also mediators of the behavioral component of the TPE. In particu-
lar, we have shown that women are more likely to support censorship of violent
and pornographic content, and that younger adults are less likely to support
censorship than older adults. We have also found that in the group of older
adults there is a strong correlation between the support to censor pornography
and the level of religiosity; however, this correlation cannot be observed in the
case of violent content. Finally, we did not find significant correlations with
these socio-demographic variables and the support to censor Sálvame.
Obviously, we have to note that, as in other research on this effect (Sun et
al., 2008), our sample is relatively small and absolutely imbalanced in terms
of age and gender distribution. The latter is due to the gender distribution of
the students (both in groups A and B). Although future research will have to
consider this limitation and try to achieve a more representative distribution to
make the results more reliable, it is important to point out that the distribution
in this study resembled that of the audience of Sálvame, as we have already
pointed out above.
8.1 The case of Sálvame

The trash talk show Sálvame is perceived by respondents as the most negative
influential content. Gunther and Thorson (1992) stated that people tend to per-

ceive a greater influence on others than on themselves when this influence is

considered to be negative or socially undesirable. Consequently, we can argue
that a greater self-other discrepancy in the effects of a certain message means
that people perceive this message as undesirable. This study supports this hy-
pothesis, since Sálvame is the content perceived as most negative by the re-
spondents. Moreover, Brosius and Engel (1996) stated that people tend to see
the exposure of others to media as guided “by their taste for the vulgar”
(p. 159). Similarly, our findings show that people tend to perceive others to be
overexposed to vulgar content, which has a strong and negative influence on
others, while they themselves avoid being exposed to vulgar content; but if
they are, it does not influence them.
In this sense, most participants indicated they are never exposed to certain
types of content, in particular, to Sálvame; however, they do perceive such
programs as having a strong negative influence on others. Additionally, partici-
pants perceive others as more credulous than they are about how realistic Sál-
vame is. We have suggested that this fact can be related to ego-enhancement
and optimistic bias: Participants see themselves as smarter than others, and
they can clearly distinguish between what is real and what is not. According
to Wei, Lo, and Lu (2007), who found evidence that optimistic bias is not a
cause of TPP, variables like perceived media credibility should be included in
future research relating third-person effect and biased optimism. Moreover, the
case of Sálvame should make us aware of what has to be considered as negative
or undesirable content as well as what we consider to be popular among view-
ers. Although many scholars have focused on topics such as violence, pornog-
raphy, misogynistic messages, or tobacco advertising, we should go beyond
these typologies and find other messages that can be considered harmful be-
cause they have the potential to influence promote rudeness, ignorance, vulgar-
ity, humiliation, depravity, or anything potentially insulting to people’s intelli-
gence: exactly what Spaniards have coined telebasura (trash TV, junk TV
programs or tabloid talk shows) and what they (others) like.
We do agree with Neuwirth and Frederick (2002) that future research on
the behavioral component of the third-person effect should lead to analyzing
actions other than censorship or advising. In the case of communication stu-
dents, some authors have argued that they tend to overestimate the effects of
media on others and, for that reason, studies on the TPE should find more
heterogeneous samples. However, we argue that using communication students
can reveal different behaviors derived from the third-person effect. In this
sense, we could examine whether the work of future media professionals (our
students in group A) can be conditioned by their perception of the effects that
certain contents or messages can have on others. Are they guided by their

perception of the influence of certain content on others and/or by their percep-

tion of the influence on themselves? How could it affect their creative activities?
Do they care if certain content is considered negative or socially undesirable,
if it attracts large audiences because of the others’ “taste for the vulgar”? Ques-
tions like these could widen the spectrum of possible behavioral reactions to
perceived influence of media on others and help us explain why media profes-
sionals (executives, producers, scriptwriters, presenters, advertising agents,
etc.) decide to give the audience “what they (the vulgar audience) want”, that
is, scandal, morbidity, tears, or aggressiveness: in other words, violence and
pornography that do not look like violence and pornography. In a similar sense,
Perloff (2002, p. 500) stated that “political elites promote third-person percep-
tions to advance agendas”; thus, message makers who are aware of this effect
may adapt their messages presuming that their perceptions of the media effects
on others are shared by and have an influence on their listeners or viewers.
And this strategy should also be considered a behavior that emerges from the
third-person effect and that, at the same time, makes it even more complex, as
it is and presumably rooted in the mental process of creation. Perloff (2002)
also adds that it would be important to reduce self-other discrepancies in our
perception of media effects and to evaluate ourselves with the same lenses that
we use to evaluate others. We would add that we, media professionals, should
be aware that we also operate under the shadow of the third-person effect.
Finally, for non-students we propose to study how the perception of a great-
er influence of negative messages on others can influence interpersonal rela-
tionships and can lead to strategies of marginalization: People may not want
to be influenced by those who are perceived as being influenced by negative
messages with undesired effects. We may want to save others from Sálvame,
and also ourselves from those who are influenced by Sálvame.
Acknowledgements: The authors would like to acknowledge the support of

Noemí Torrelles and the students at New School Tàrrega during the data
collection process
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DE GRUYTER MOUTON Communications 2014; 39(2): 193–214

Frederic Guerrero-Solé, Reinald Besalú and

Frederic Guerrero-Solé, Associate Professor at the Department of Communication of the Pom-

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2 Negative influence, social distance, and target

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influence others; self-perceived knowledge (Atwood, 1994; Lasorsa, 1989; Pei-

3 The influence of perceived influence

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4 TPE research in Spain

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pornographic content and Sálvame. We also analyze behavioral outcomes (ad-

4.2 Perceptual component

[H1a] Participants will perceive a greater influence of media on others than on

[H1b, H1c, and H1d]

[H2] Participants will perceive a greater exposure to media and controversial

[H3] Perceived exposure of others to media and controversial contents will be

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4.3 Behavioral component

[H5] Advising family/friends not to watch controversial content will be relat-

[H6] Support for censorship of controversial content will be related to the

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5.2 Behavioral component

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Others Self Difference Others Self Difference

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Others Self Difference

Media 4.43 .63 3.47 .92 0.95***

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7 The level of credulity

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raphy (others) (5)

Influence of pornog- −.25* .01 .13 .55** .43**

Influence of Sálva- −.20 .18 .05 .14 .23* .34** .08

Save me, save them!

F. Guerrero-Solé, R. Besalú and H. López-González DE GRUYTER MOUTON

Influence of Media (others) (1)

7.1 Behavioral component

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7.3 Support for censorship

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Table 5: Behavioral component. Correlations between influence and willingness to censor

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likely to support censorship of violence and pornography. These results are

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communication theories. However, a deeper analysis of our data has shown

8.1 The case of Sálvame

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ceive a greater influence on others than on themselves when this influence is

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perception of the influence of certain content on others and/or by their percep-

Acknowledgements: The authors would like to acknowledge the support of

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Influence of pornog- −.25* .01 .13 .55 .43