Examining Third-Person Perceptions in the Context of Sexually Oriented Advertising

Abstract

A limited amount of research has been undertaken to investigate third-person perceptions as persuasion in the context of sexually oriented advertising. This study examined whether sexually oriented advertising and gender differences would yield significant influences on third-person perceptions and whether participants' sexual cognition would moderate their third-person perceptions. Results showed that sexually oriented advertising, gender differences, and sexual cognition were significant factors that dominated the thirdperson perceptions. After exposure to sexually oriented advertising, females were led to a stronger degree of the third-person perceptions than males. Moreover, the participants with a more negative level of sexual cognition had a stronger degree of the third-person perceptions than those with a more positive level of sexual cognition after exposure to sexually oriented advertising.

Looking Beyond First-Person Effects (FPEs) in the Influence of Scarcity Appeals in Advertising: A Replication and Extension of Eisend (2008)

“…Evidence of TPE in people's response to negative messages ranges from susceptibility to defamatory messages (Cohen et al 1988), violent and misogynic rap lyrics (McLeod, Eveland, and Nathanson 1997), persuasive influence of media messages (Perloff 2002), pornography on the internet (Lee and Tamborini 2005;Wu and Koo 2001), alcohol product placements (Shin and Kim 2011) and sexual advertising (Pan, Meng, and Zhou 2012).…”

The Third-Person Perception of Sex Appeals in Hedonic and Utilitarian Product Ads

“…Here, a positive attitude refers to relatively liberal individuals who are comfortable with sexual stimuli, whereas a negative attitude refers to relatively conservative individuals who are uncomfortable with sexual stimuli. Further, people's current beliefs and perceptions about the influence of communication are predicted to be an important determinant of their perception of these media messages (Pan, Meng, and Zhou 2012). Current beliefs and biases toward an ad will influence the perception of the ad.…”

“…To test validity, exploratory factor analysis was performed using the maximum likelihood extraction and promax rotation method. To measure thirdperson perception, participants were asked to respond to two sets of statements (Pan, Meng, and Zhou 2012) regarding the self and others (defined as "other students at the university").…”

“…Based on this, when the message is more undesirable, the self-other asymmetry will be greater (Gunther and Storey 2003). When literature on the perceptual component of third-person was reviewed, the studies found focused on, among other topics, violent content (McLeod, Eveland, and Nathanson 1997;Rojas, Shah, and Faber 1996), pornography (Lee and Tamborini 2005;Lo and Wei 2002), persuasive and commercial messages (Duck, Terry, and Hogg 1995;Wan, Faber, and Fung 2003), perceived effects of direct-toconsumer prescription drug advertising (Huh, Delorme, and Reid 2004), political advertising (Paek et al 2005), and sexual advertising (Pan, Meng, and Zhou 2012). The studies focusing on the behavioral component of third-person were limited to support for censorship for certain types of media messages and some restrictive regulations (Rojas, Shah, and Faber 1996;Salwen and Dupagne 1999;Youn, Faber, and Shah 2000;Lee and Tamborini 2005).…”

Third-person perception of cosmeceutical product advertising: The moderating role of body esteem

“…Recent studies on persuasive messages can be found in the third-person scholarship in various contexts of television talk show, 42 sexually oriented advertising, 43 political attack advertising, 44 and online pornography legislation, 45 but they have not examined the role of third-person perception in the context of cosmeceutical product-relevant messages. Thus, it is essential to examine how third-person perception would operate after exposure to cosmeceutical product advertisement.…”