Adolescent Dating Violence: Article Analysis

In his article, John Chapin (2013) studies how adolescents’ perceive dating/relationship violence. Chapin attempts this study by using TPP, also known as third-person perception. This study also expands the third-person perception by drawing from health psychology literature to explain and explore predictors (p. 393). Chapin uses media to help depict how adolescents form these perceptions. Dating/relationship violence occurs when one person attempts to maintain power and control over the other person, often resulting in violent actions. Although dating/relationship violence is very common and often heard of, adolescent dating violence is hidden quite frequently. Most teenagers are inexperienced in dating, and some often feel pressure from their

Hypothesis one is a participant believes that other people are more likely to be influenced by the media’s depictions of dating violence more than them. Hypothesis two suggests that TPP is more likely to increase as optimistic bias increases. Hypothesis three proposes that TPP is more likely to decrease as experience with relationship violence increases. Hypothesis four suggests that TPP is more likely to increase as knowledge about violent relationships increases. Hypothesis five is TPP is more likely to increase as self-esteem increases. Hypothesis six proposes that TPP is more likely to increase as self-efficacy increases. Lastly, hypothesis seven is TPP increases as estimates of perceived relationship violence increases (p.

Third-person perception is when people believe that they are less affected by mass media than others (p. 393). As mentioned in the paragraph above, there are several predictors that can lead to this theory. The first predictor is optimistic bias. Optimistic bias is a psychology theory that predicts that people are more likely to believe that bad things will happen to other people more so than themselves. The second predictor is experience. Optimistic bias is best predicted by an experience. People are more likely to believe that bad things will happen to others if they see these bad things happening to others and not to them. The third predictor is knowledge. The more knowledge a person has on a particular subject, the more aware they are of the subject. An example of this in regards to TPP is people who gain knowledge about mass media and their depictions of subjects are more aware and are less likely to be affected by them. The fourth predictor is self-esteem. The preservation of self-esteem and self-concept is a motivator of optimistic bias and TPP. People, who tend to have higher self-esteem, are more likely to feel that they are above being affected by the media’s depictions. The fifth prediction is self-efficacy. Having high self-efficacy refers to having high confidence in one’s ability to accomplish a desired goal. The last predictor is attitudes and behaviors. These two are common with TPP in regards