Law of primacy in persuasion

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In persuasive communication, the order of the information's presentation influences opinion formation. The law of primacy in persuasion, otherwise known as a primacy effect, as postulated by Frederick Hansen Lund in 1925 holds that the side of an issue presented first will have greater effectiveness in persuasion than the side presented subsequently. [1] Lund presented college students with a document in support of one side of a controversial issue and then presented a second document which supported the opposite position. He found the document read first had greater influence, regardless of which position it expressed. [2] This empirical evidence was generally accepted until 1950, when Cromwell published findings of the opposite: a recency effect in which arguments presented later had greater effectiveness in persuasion than arguments presented first. [3] It now appears that both primacy and recency effects occur in persuasion.

Contents

Theoretical background

There are many different theoretical models proposed to explain the occurrence of primacy and recency effects.

Sensory-variation

Schultz (1963) developed the "sensory-variation" hypothesis for order effects, which suggests that humans seek high activation and will respond to novel stimuli more strongly than to stimuli they are familiar with. Novel stimuli should provide higher activation than familiar information, according to this theory. Shultz developed four postulates from this general hypothesis:

  1. When a person encounters a topic for the first time, the communication is perceived as novel and causes high activation. Any subsequent communication on the same topic produces less activation, and so the person will react according to the initial communication in an attempt to experience the higher activation. A primacy effect should be observed in this scenario.
  2. If the person is allowed to record his opinion after each communication, the person will respond more to the communication that he encounters either second in a group of two or last in a group of three or more in order to maintain a high level of activation. Therefore, a recency effect is hypothesized.
  3. When a time delay or another task is inserted between the two communications, the higher level of activation will be dissipated by the time the second communication occurs. The second communication acts as a novel stimulus in this scenario. Either a recency effect or no order effect will occur in this scenario.
  4. When communications are familiar, such as social issues or current issues, the first communication will not produce activation that is less than the activation for unfamiliar communication. However, some aspect of the communication may be novel, and so there may be some increased activation. Therefore, either a small primacy effect or no order effect will be demonstrated. [4]

Attention decrement

Anderson (1981) theorized that order effects occur due to "attention decrement". According to this theory, when the first piece of information is presented about an opinion, people tend to pay less attention to subsequent information that may provide evidence to the contrary opinion. Therefore, people's opinions about something are influenced strongly by the information that they paid attention to, which was the first information presented to them. This model of "attention decrement" predicts a primacy effect in opinion formation. [5]

The belief-adjustment model

Hogarth and Einhorn (1992) proposed the belief-adjustment model to try to predict in which situations order effects would occur and what specific order effect will occur. According to Hogarth and Einhorn, early information forms an initial impression, which is called an anchor. This anchor is then adjusted as new information is processed. This model predicts order effects based on the type of mental processing that is used for the new information. For end-of-sequence processing, or processing that occurs once all of the information has been presented, the model predicts primacy effects. The initial piece of information serves as the anchor, and subsequent pieces of information are aggregated together to adjust the initial piece of information. Therefore, the initial piece of information is weighted more than subsequent pieces of information, leading to a primacy effect. [6]

However, when processing changes to step-by-step processing, or processing that occurs after each new piece of information, recency effects are predicted. Each new piece of information received will be processed separately. This new piece of information will then become the new anchor, which forms a new impression. Beliefs are being adjusted with the processing of each new anchor, which leads to more weight being placed to the information most recently received. Therefore, recency effects are predicted to occur when information is processed in a step-by-step manner. [6]

Factors that moderate order effects

There are factors that can moderate the occurrence of order effects. Moderating factors affect the likelihood of order effects occurring.

Need for cognition

Need for cognition moderates the occurrence of order effects. Kassin, Reddy, and Tulloch (1990) demonstrated that a juror's need for cognition affects which order effect the juror relies on for their vote. An ambiguous confession was played by one side of the case, and then both sides commented that the confession fit into their narrative of the crime. The side who presented the confession spoke first. Jurors who had high need for cognition were more likely to exhibit a primacy effect, meaning that they believed the confession fit with whichever side presented the confession as evidence. Conversely, jurors who had low need for cognition demonstrated a recency effect, and believed that the confession supported the case for the side who did not submit the confession. [7]

Kassin, Reddy, and Tulloch (1990) believed that the reason for this effect was due to the nature of processing that the jurors engaged in. Jurors who were high in need for cognition actively process the information. This active processing leads to agreeing with the initial presentation of the data, and then participating in processing that confirms this agreement. However, people low in need for cognition do not process information, and therefore, rely on the information presented most recently for their opinion. [7]

This impact of need for cognition is supported by a study conducted by Huagtvedt and Petty (1992). The experimenters played a message for two groups of people, one group that was high in need for cognition and one group that was low in need for cognition. The two groups were determined by their own need for cognition, and were not experimentally manipulated into the two groups. Initially, both groups were equally persuaded by the message. However, the two groups then listened to a weak counter-message, which was not as strong as the evidence for the initial message. The group that had high need for cognition were not persuaded by the weak counter-message, and their opinions were still in line with the initial message. The other group, the low need for cognition group, was persuaded by the new message. The high need for cognition demonstrated a primacy effect, while the low need for cognition demonstrated a recency effect. [8]

Chunking

Chunking interacts with the order of information and need for cognition to moderate the occurrence of order effects. Petty, Tormala, Hawkins, and Wegener (2001) conducted a study which examined the effect chunking has on order effects in people with high and low need for cognition. Participants read arguments for and against an exam policy, and this information was presented as being either chunked or unchunked. When the information was chunked, those who show high need for cognition were prone to primacy effects, while those with low need for cognition were prone to recency effects. However, when the information was presented in an unchunked nature, the opposite results were found. People who had high need for cognition demonstrated recency effects, whereas people who had low need for cognition showed a primacy effect. [9] Therefore, chunking appears to interact with need for cognition to allow for order effects to occur.

Familiarity of information

A study conducted by Lana (1961) demonstrates a moderating effect of the familiarity of information presented on order effects. In the study, a topic of initial low familiarity was used. Then, the researchers presented a long talk to well familiarize one group with the topic and a short talk to another group to gain little familiarization with the topic. A third group was then presented with no familiarization talk. Each of these three groups was then split into two subgroups, which listened to arguments for and against the topic twelve days later. One subgroup would listen to the argument for the topic first and then the argument against the topic, and the second subgroup would listen to the argument against it first. These groups then filled out a Likert scale questionnaire on their opinions on the topic. The results show that prior familiarization with a topic increased the likelihood of a primacy effect. Therefore, those in the long familiarization group had an opinion on the topic that coincided with which argument they heard first, regardless of the actual stance. However, no prior familiarization led to a recency effect to be demonstrated. Therefore, the group that was given no familiarization talk demonstrated opinions that coincided with the argument presented last to them. [10]

Controversy of the topic

A study conducted by Lana (1963) demonstrates that the controversiality of the topic can have a moderating effect on order effects. College students and high school students read arguments for and against a controversial topic and a noncontroversial topic, and were then asked to fill out an opinion questionnaire about the topics. For college students, the controversial topic exhibited a primacy effect. College students did not exhibit any order effects for a noncontroversial topic. The college students were persuaded more by the argument they encountered first for a controversial issue, but were not influenced by the order of the presentation of arguments for noncontroversial topics. However, for high school students, no order effects were exhibited for either the controversial or noncontroversial topics. Therefore, the controversy of a topic appears to affect the role order effects play for some age groups in persuasion. [11]

Order effects in judgment formation

Sports

Smith, Greenlees, and Manley (2009) found that order effects can occur in assessment of sports ability. The researchers had participants watch a video composed of an ultimate Frisbee player performing certain skills. Two videos were shown, either in descending ability or increasing ability. The participants were then asked to make assessments of the overall ability of the players and three aspects of their ability. However, the assessments occurred at differing times in the video. One group made the assessments at the end of the video, one group made delayed assessments at the end of the video, a third group made the assessments after each skill in the video, and a fourth group that made the overall assessment after each skill but then made the assessment of the ability after viewing the entire video. Results indicate that a primacy effect was exhibited in each of the conditions, except for the third group, which did not demonstrate any order effects. The assessment of ability tended to agree with the initial ability level shown. However, the group that made assessments in an extended step-by-step manner were not influenced by the order the abilities were shown. Therefore, a primacy effect can occur in ability assessment, unless extended step-by-step processing is employed. [12]

Service encounters

In a study conducted by Garnefeld and Steinhoff (2013), order effects were demonstrated for opinions regarding service encounters. Four groups received daily descriptions of a hypothetical hotel stay over the course of five days. One group had a very positive experience on the first day, and then a neutral to slightly positive experience for the rest of the days. The second group had a negative experience on the first day, and then a neutral to slightly positive experience for the rest of the stay. Groups three and four experienced a neutral experience for the first four days, with group three then having a positive experience on the last day and group four having a negative experience on the last day. Each group was then tested for customer satisfaction regarding their hypothetical stay. Garnefeld and Steinhoff found that the timing of positive or negative occurrences is what affected satisfaction. For negative events, a recency effect was demonstrated, meaning that negative events which occurred at the end of the stay affected customer satisfaction more than negative events at the beginning of the stay. For positive events, a primacy effect was demonstrated, which means that positive events that occurred at the beginning of the stay affected customer satisfaction more than positive events at the end of the stay. Therefore, the timing of particular types of events in extended service encounters predicts the effect of the event on satisfaction. [13]

Order effects in health care

Order effects may be used to influence a patient to receive an effective treatment that aligns with their values. One study, conducted by Bansback, Li, Lynd, and Bryan (2014), demonstrates that a primacy effect will influence the decision for treatment. The researchers presented three groups with information about sleep apnea treatments. The three groups were based on the order in which the information was presented. One group received information in an order unrelated to their values, while two groups received information ordered based on their values. One of the groups received information that aligned with their values first, and the other group received information that aligned with their values last. The researchers found that patients were more likely to choose the treatment that aligned with their values when this information was presented first, thus demonstrating a primacy effect for information on treatments that align with a patient's values. The order in which patients receive information appears to influence which treatment option they choose. [14]

Order effects in politics

Voter mobilization

In a study conducted by Panagopoulos (2010), order effects were found in terms of voter mobilization. Calls were made to residents of an American city at different times before an election. Some residents received a call 4 weeks prior to an election, some received a call two weeks prior to an election, some received a call three days before an election, and some residents did not receive a call. The call made was a nonpartisan attempt to mobilize people to vote. Results indicate that the timing of the call may not have an effect on the general voter population, but that the timing can affect certain populations and get certain populations to vote at higher rates. According to Panagopoulos, high-propensity voters, voters who typically turn out in higher numbers, voted at higher percentages when they received the call four weeks prior to the election, demonstrating a primacy effect. However, for lower propensity voters, voters who typically do not vote, calls made three days prior to the election were more effective at getting this population to vote, demonstrating a recency effect. Therefore, for voter mobilization, propensity to vote appears to be a moderating variable influencing the effect of timing of a mobilization call. [15]

See also

Related Research Articles

Persuasion Umbrella term of influence and mode of communication

Persuasion or persuasion arts is an umbrella term of influence. Persuasion can attempt to influence a person's beliefs, attitudes, intentions, motivations, or behaviors.

Recall in memory refers to the mental process of retrieval of information from the past. Along with encoding and storage, it is one of the three core processes of memory. There are three main types of recall: free recall, cued recall and serial recall. Psychologists test these forms of recall as a way to study the memory processes of humans and animals. Two main theories of the process of recall are the two-stage theory and the theory of encoding specificity.

Agenda-setting describes the "ability to influence the importance placed on the topics of the public agenda". The study of agenda-setting describes the way media attempts to influence viewers, and establish a hierarchy of news prevalence. Nations with more political power receive higher media exposure. The agenda-setting by media is driven by the media's bias on things such as politics, economy and culture, etc. The evolution of agenda-setting and laissez-faire components of communication research encouraged a fast pace growth and expansion of these perspectives. Agenda-setting has phases that need to be in a specific order in order for it to succeed.

In social psychology, group polarization refers to the tendency for a group to make decisions that are more extreme than the initial inclination of its members. These more extreme decisions are towards greater risk if individuals' initial tendencies are to be risky and towards greater caution if individuals' initial tendencies are to be cautious. The phenomenon also holds that a group's attitude toward a situation may change in the sense that the individuals' initial attitudes have strengthened and intensified after group discussion, a phenomenon known as attitude polarization.

Sleeper effect

The sleeper effect is a psychological phenomenon that relates to persuasion. It is a delayed increase of the effect of a message that is accompanied by a discounting cue.

Serial-position effect Tendency of a person to recall the first and last items in a series best, and the middle items worst

Serial-position effect is the tendency of a person to recall the first and last items in a series best, and the middle items worst. The term was coined by Hermann Ebbinghaus through studies he performed on himself, and refers to the finding that recall accuracy varies as a function of an item's position within a study list. When asked to recall a list of items in any order, people tend to begin recall with the end of the list, recalling those items best. Among earlier list items, the first few items are recalled more frequently than the middle items.

Social judgment theory (SJT) is a self-persuasion theory proposed by Carolyn Sherif, Muzafer Sherif, and Carl Hovland, defined by Sherif and Sherif as the perception and evaluation of an idea by comparing it with current attitudes. According to this theory, an individual weighs every new idea, comparing it with the individual's present point of view to determine where it should be placed on the attitude scale in an individual's mind. SJT is the subconscious sorting out of ideas that occurs at the instant of perception.

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In media studies, mass communication, media psychology, communication theory, and sociology, media influence and media effects are topics relating to mass media and media culture's effects on individual or an audience's thoughts, attitudes, and behavior. Whether it is written, televised, or spoken, mass media reaches a large audience. Mass media's role and effect in shaping modern culture are central issues for study of culture.

Salience is the state or condition of being prominent. The Oxford English Dictionary defines salience as "most noticeable or important." The concept is discussed in communication, semiotics, linguistics, sociology, psychology, and political science. It has been studied with respect to interpersonal communication, persuasion, politics, and its influence on mass media.

Elaboration likelihood model Dual process theory

The elaboration likelihood model (ELM) of persuasion is a dual process theory describing the change of attitudes. The ELM was developed by Richard E. Petty and John Cacioppo in 1980. The model aims to explain different ways of processing stimuli, why they are used, and their outcomes on attitude change. The ELM proposes two major routes to persuasion: the central route and the peripheral route.

Belief bias is the tendency to judge the strength of arguments based on the plausibility of their conclusion rather than how strongly they support that conclusion. A person is more likely to accept an argument that supports a conclusion that aligns with their values, beliefs and prior knowledge, while rejecting counter arguments to the conclusion. Belief bias is an extremely common and therefore significant form of error; we can easily be blinded by our beliefs and reach the wrong conclusion. Belief bias has been found to influence various reasoning tasks, including conditional reasoning, relation reasoning and transitive reasoning.

Need for cognition Psychology concept

The need for cognition (NFC), in psychology, is a personality variable reflecting the extent to which individuals are inclined towards effortful cognitive activities.

Fear appeal is a term used in psychology, sociology and marketing. It generally describes a strategy for motivating people to take a particular action, endorse a particular policy, or buy a particular product, by arousing fear. A well-known example in television advertising was a commercial employing the musical jingle: "Never pick up a stranger, pick up Prestone anti-freeze." This was accompanied by images of shadowy strangers (hitchhikers) who would presumably do one harm if picked up. The commercial's main appeal was not to the positive features of Prestone anti-freeze, but to the fear of what a "strange" brand might do.

Inoculation theory is a social psychological/communication theory that explains how an attitude or belief can be protected against persuasion or influence in much the same way a body can be protected against disease–for example, through pre-exposure to weakened versions of a stronger, future threat. The theory uses medical inoculation as its explanatory analogy—applied to attitudes rather than to a disease. It has great potential for building public resilience ('immunity') against misinformation and fake news, for example, in tackling science denialism, risky health behaviours, and emotionally manipulative marketing and political messaging.

The heuristic-systematic model of information processing (HSM) is a widely recognized model by Shelly Chaiken that attempts to explain how people receive and process persuasive messages. The model states that individuals can process messages in one of two ways: heuristically or systematically. Whereas systematic processing entails careful and deliberative processing of a message, heuristic processing entails the use of simplifying decision rules or ‘heuristics’ to quickly assess the message content. The guiding belief with this model is that individuals are more apt to minimize their use of cognitive resources, thus affecting the intake and processing of messages. HSM predicts that processing type will influence the extent to which a person is persuaded or exhibits lasting attitude change. HSM is quite similar to the elaboration likelihood model, or ELM. Both models were predominantly developed in the early to mid-1980s and share many of the same concepts and ideas.

Assimilation and contrast effects

The assimilation effect, assimilation bias or biased assimilation is a bias in evaluative judgments towards the position of a context stimulus, while contrast effects describe a negative correlation between a judgment and contextual information.

In social psychology, the Yale attitude change approach is the study of the conditions under which people are most likely to change their attitudes in response to persuasive messages. This approach to persuasive communications was first studied by Carl Hovland and his colleagues at Yale University during World War II. The basic model of this approach can be described as "who said what to whom": the source of the communication, the nature of the communication and the nature of the audience. According to this approach, many factors affect each component of a persuasive communication. The credibility and attractiveness of the communicator (source), the quality and sincerity of the message, and the attention, intelligence and age of the audience can influence an audience's attitude change with a persuasive communication. Independent variables include the source, message, medium and audience, with the dependent variable the effect of the persuasion.

Serial memory processing is the act of attending to and processing one item at a time. This is usually contrasted against parallel memory processing, which is the act of attending to and processing all items simultaneously.

Self-Persuasion is used to explain one aspect of social influence. This theory postulates that the receiver takes an active role in persuading himself or herself to change his or her attitude or behavior. Unlike the direct technique of Persuasion, Self-persuasion is indirect and entails placing people in situations where they are motivated to persuade themselves to change. More specifically what characterizes a self-persuasion situation is that no direct attempt is made to convince anyone of anything. Thus, with self-persuasion, people are convinced that the motivation for change has come from within, so the persuasion factors of another person's influence is irrelevant. Therefore, Self-persuasion is almost always a more powerful form of persuasion than the more traditional persuasion techniques. Self-Persuasion, also has an important influence in Social judgment theory, Elaboration Likelihood Model, Cognitive Dissonance and Narrative paradigm.

References

  1. ↑ Stone, Vernon A. (1969). "A Primacy Effect in Decision-Making by Jurors". Journal of Communication. 19 (3): 239–247. doi:10.1111/j.1460-2466.1969.tb00846.x.
  2. ↑ "Primacy-Recency". ADV 382J: Fall 2001, "Theories of Persuasive Communication & Consumer Decision Making". Center for Interactive Advertising, The University of Texas at Austin. 2001. Retrieved 2007-11-04.
  3. ↑ Kohler, Christine. "Order Effects Theory : Primacy versus Recency". Center for Interactive Advertising, The University of Texas at Austin . Retrieved 2007-11-04.
  4. ↑ Schultz, D. P. (1963). "Primacy-recency within a sensory variation framework". The Psychological Record. 13 (2): 129–139. doi:10.1007/BF03393511. S2CID   148818862.
  5. ↑ Anderson, N.H. (1981). Foundations of information integration theory. New York: Academic Press.
  6. 1 2 Hogarth, R. M. & Einhorn, H. J. (1992). "Order effects in belief updating: The belief-adjustment model". Cognitive Psychology. 24 (1): 1–55. doi:10.1016/0010-0285(92)90002-J. S2CID   54272129.
  7. 1 2 Kassin, S. M.; Reddy, M. E. & Tulloch, W. F. (1990). "Juror interpretations of ambiguous evidence: The need for cognition, presentation order, and persuasion" (PDF). Law and Human Behavior. 14 (1): 43–55. doi:10.1007/BF01055788. JSTOR   1393555. S2CID   144360961.
  8. ↑ Haugtvedt, C. P. & Petty, R. E. (1992). "Personality and persuasion: Need for cognition moderates the persistence and resistance of attitude changes" (PDF). Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 63 (2): 308. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.63.2.308.
  9. ↑ Petty, R. E.; Tormala, Z. L.; Hawkins, C. & Wegener, D. T. (2001). "Motivation to think and order effects in persuasion: The moderating role of chunking". Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin. 27 (3): 332–344. doi:10.1177/0146167201273007. S2CID   38839119.
  10. ↑ Lana, R. E. (1961). "Familiarity and the order of presentation of persuasive communications". The Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology. 62 (3): 573–577. doi:10.1037/h0046634. PMID   14461892.
  11. ↑ Lana, Robert E. (1963). "Controversy of the topic and the order of presentation in persuasive communications". Psychological Reports. 12 (1): 163–170. doi:10.2466/pr0.1963.12.1.163. S2CID   144779674.
  12. ↑ Smith, M. J.; Greenlees, I. & Manley, A. (2009). "Influence of order effects and mode of judgement on assessments of ability in sport". Journal of Sports Sciences. 27 (7): 745–752. doi:10.1080/02640410902939647. PMID   19437187. S2CID   9619845.
  13. ↑ Garnefeld, I. & Steinhoff, L. (2013). "Primacy versus recency effects in extended service encounters". Journal of Service Management. 24 (1): 64–81. doi:10.1108/09564231311304198.
  14. ↑ Bansback, N.; Li L. C.; Lynd, L. & Bryan S. (2014). "Exploiting order effects to improve the quality of decisions". Patient Education and Counseling. 96 (2): 197–203. doi: 10.1016/j.pec.2014.05.021 . PMID   24961445.
  15. ↑ Panagopoulos, C. (2011). "Timing Is Everything? Primacy and Recency Effects in Voter Mobilization Campaigns". Political Behavior. 33 (1): 79–93. doi:10.1007/s11109-010-9125-x. JSTOR   41488275. S2CID   143912398.

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