Primacy Effect on Impression Formation

Florida International University

Primacy Effect on Impression Formation

A 60 question test comprising of vocabulary and analogy type questions is taken by many graduate students when making admission decisions. The average score of this graduate exam across the nation is about 12 correct answers out of the first 30 questions. Each year Florida International University researchers give a test to a random sample of college students of FIU to see how students at FIU compare to other students across the country. The answers given by one of these students were used in the study for determining how people form impressions of others based on nothing but performance on test. The participants of the study were required to figure out how many of the answers were right or wrong and where there were the most mistakes. They then had to rate the student in terms of how much they believed him/her to be intelligent in general from the score. The participants were given the answers of the questions that had different conditions falling in three main categories, i.e. they were either given test that improved in terms of right answers as the questions progressed, comprised of randomly right answers or the answers were more right ones initially leading to worsening by the end of the 30th question. What kind of impression will each of the condition bring in relation to the intelligence of the student whose answers were provided and the role that primacy has in relation to impression formation has been a subject of a number of research studies surrounding social science.

The formation of first impression has been a subject of interest for many researchers in the area of psychology. Impression formation is regarded as a “social cognitive task of gathering and organizing information about people” (Palmquist, 1979). In the formation of first impression, a glance, a few words spoken or any other small act is sufficient (Asch, 1964). The process is one that happens rapidly and with ease and is also considered to be a sensitive one. Each person comprises of a number of characteristics and traits but the first impression formed is on the basis of what is seen in the initial stages of encountering a person. This brings in the concept of the effect that primacy have.

Primacy effect is a phenomenon that is found to have an important role in impression formation. When adults are presented with information about an individual in two groups that are consistent yet contradictory, it is reported that an impression is formed on the basis of what is presented to them first, i.e. the primacy effect (Luchins, 1957). Research surrounding impression formation indicates of the existence of primacy effects (Anderson & Hubert, 1963; Jones & Goethals, 1972; Stewart, 1965). A different presentation of things would alter the kind of impression that is formed. One of the most informing accounts in this relation is the experiment of Asch (1946) on formation of personality impression and it was found out that ...