本项研究旨在1）检验中国的新闻工作者中的第三者效应 2）探索第一者因素（地域差异、党员身份、新闻评价）对第三者效应的影响。基于在北京、湖南举行的问卷调查，本研究发现，新闻工作者中存在第三者效应；党员身份与新闻评价可减弱第三者效应，地域影响不影响第三者效应。基于中介分析，本研究还发现，第一者因素对“估他”与“自估”变量的方向相同、强度接近的影响可相互抵消，而使对第三者效应的总影响趋弱趋零。

在研究方法上，本研究引入了百分标尺（ps）和百分系数（bp）以测量效果量，改造中介分析并探索过程结果分析（process and outcome analysis）以用于分析第三者效应。

Based on a cluster sampling survey of 672 media professionals in Beijing and Hunan in 2018, this study addresses the questions (a) whether the media professionals manifest third-person perception (TPP) and (b) whether three first-person factors (FPFs), namely geographical location, political identity and perception of news quality, affect TPP. The study also adapts a reconfigured mediation model to investigates the process through which geographical location influences TPP.

Exhibiting TPP, the media professionals report perceptions that they are less influenced than others by media news. Communist party members show weaker TPP than others, while those who are less satisfied with media news show stronger TPP.

Respondents in Hunan are more likely than their Beijing counterparts to think of others as easily influenced by media news. Nevertheless, the total effect of geographical location (Beijing vs Hunan) on TPP reduces to minimal in the process of mediation in which effects through PEO and PES compete with and offset each other.

The study also demonstrates applications of percentage scale (ps) and percentage coefficient (bp) proposed by Zhao and Zhang (2014) for measuring and comparing effect sizes in regression analysis, and finds them helpful. (c.f., Zhao, X., & Zhang, X. J., 2014. Emerging methodological issues in quantitative communication research; in J. Hong, Ed., New Trends in Communication Studies, II, pp. 953–978. Beijing: Tsinghua University Press.)