Impact of Perception: Third-Person Perception, Anxiety, and Attitude Change

This study investigates (a) how the third-person perception of news coverage is affected by the perceiver's preexisting attitude and the content of the news coverage and (b) how anxiety mediates the relationship between the third-person perception and attitude change. A Web-based experiment was conducted with a 2 (message position: prorestriction vs. antirestriction) × 2 (subject position: prorestriction vs. antirestriction) factorial design with message position and subject position as between-subjects factors. The findings demonstrate that those who read a news article that is inconsistent with their own opinion show a larger third-person perception than those who read a news article that is consistent with their opinion, and the third-person perception has an indirect effect on attitude change through anxiety.