RUNNING HEAD: Hypothesis Identification Analysis

Hypothesis Identification Article Analysis
Aaron Hansel
University of Phoenix

Hypothesis Identification Analysis Article Social networking websites have become increasingly popular within the last several years. Many people now use websites such as MySpace, Facebook, and Twitter to contact friends and family. This article examines the effects that these social networking websites have on the third-person effect. Initially, the author proposes three different hypotheses: 1) Whether the third-party effect actually exists in the social networking website context and, if by chance that it does, how it differs from traditional media content. 2) How such perceptual bias varies with different referent others. 3) Whether such perceptual differentials potentially lead to behavioral outcomes. For the purpose of this assignment, the focus will primarily be on the first of these three hypotheses. After the initial hypothesis was made, the author broke it down into two separate hypotheses. The first being people tend to believe that social networking websites have a greater impact on other people than on themselves. The second hypothesis developed was that people tend to exhibit a greater third-party effect on social networking websites than on traditional media. After testing the article came up with the following results. The first hypothesis, people believe that social networking websites have a greater impact on others than on themselves, was determined by using a paired t-test. A strong third-party effect appeared, so the first hypothesis was supported. The second hypothesis, people tend to exhibit a greater third-party effect on social networking websites than on traditional media, used a repeated measure ANOVA and was also supported. It was determined that