Keywords

Third-person effect, controversial product advertising, offensive advertising

Abstract

This research seeks to determine if there is a third-person effect in the realm of controversial product advertising. A questionnaire was designed based on previous research and distributed to a convenience sample of college students at the University of Central Florida. Participants were asked to rate their perceived levels of personal offense to product categories as well as the expected levels of other groups of people. The results show that there is indeed a significant third-person effect recognized for all product categories except for racial extremist groups. A first-person effect was shown to be present for the category of racial extremist groups. This research also suggests that a concealed third-person effect may have been present in previous studies of this nature that obtained high levels of offense attributed to the self. Discussions of the findings, implications for marketers and advertisers, limitations to the study, as well as suggestions for future research are also posited.

Notes

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Graduation Date

2005

Semester

Spring

Advisor

Collins, Steven

Degree

Master of Arts (M.A.)

College

College of Arts and Sciences

Department

Communication

Degree Program

Communication

Format

application/pdf

Identifier

CFE0000494

URL

http://purl.fcla.edu/fcla/etd/CFE0000494

Language

English

Release Date

May 2005

Length of Campus-only Access

None

Access Status

Masters Thesis (Open Access)

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Included in

Communication Commons

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