The Validation of Third Person Effect on the Audience of IRIB(Parental Attitudes on TV Programs in Tehran)

Television, has an undeniable influence on human’s attitude, tendencies & behavior in the world today. Besides, all of us, have beliefs & perceptions between ourselves & others about the extent of being influenced by television. Literally, the important issue on these beliefs is the comparison we make on the extent of influence between ourselves & others. Usually, in such comparisons we take others as being more influenced by media rather than ourselves. The goal of this research is to survey on the amount of influence exerted by a third person. This is done from the perspective of student’s parents in Tehran about TV programs. The research methodology is survey by cluster sampling from student’s parents in two districts of Tehran (386 person). The findings are: The influence of third person occurs in Tehran’s statistical population and persisting differences between this city and western societies cannot prevent the emergence of this effect (Though there are differences in the effect’s size); secondly, the manner of receiving the influence from the content (desirability/undesirability) on the emergence & size of third person effect, is influential. Thirdly, by increasing perceived social distance between the self & others, the size of third person effect increases; fourthly, optimistic bias and third person effect do not have a meaningful relation and the fifthly, between behavioral tendencies for limiting access to media and the size of perceptual third person effect, a meaningful relation with moderate power exists.