the same information but in the reverse order. Afterwards all participants
are asked to rate the person in the story in terms of certain personality
traits. He found that the participants who hear the story with the positive
one first will rate the person more positively. Luchins suggested that
impressions were strongly influenced by the order in which we receive
information about people. The first information we receive is the most
important and most likely to be remembered.
Asch and Luchins used hypothetical people in their study. However,
Jones et al (1968) used an actual person.Participants watched a video of a
student solving a set of multiple choice questions with the frequency of
correct answers either increasing or decreasing, but actually the student
always solved 15 out of the 30 correctly, participants were asked to rate
the student ’s intelligence, they judged the student as more intelligent
when the first 15 were right (primacy effect), also, when asked to recall
how many correct those who had seen student perform first 15 correct
estimated 20/30 those who had seen the last 15 correct estimated 12/30.
These studies provide evidence for primacy effect - the greater impact of
what we first learn about someone (first impressions) and suggest that
once one determines they have an acceptable understanding of the
information presented to them, they will pay less attention as more
information is presented and only recall the first impression.
In nowadays 21st century, many society factors have been changed, for
example, internet is widely used over the world today, as well as many
social networking websites e.g. Facebook and MySpace, the effect of first
impression might be changed.In order to investigate whether the primacy
effect still prevails in today’s society. I will be adapting Luchins research
and writing my own paragraphs - story 1 & 2(see appendices 1). I will be
using 11 categories for participants to choose from in order to force a bias.
Method
Design
The method used was the field experiment with an independent groups
design, so that there is higher ecological validity and less demand
characteristics. The independent variable was whether positive primacy
story or negative primacy story given to the participant and the dependant
variable was number of positive or negative rating given to the character
(Bob). There are some confounding variables (CV) in the experiments,
for example, the participants may read the story more than once so the
investigation of first impression may invalid .Therefore, participants
should be told that they are only allowed to read the story only once and
the story should be taken off once they 've read. There is also investigator
effect as the characteristics of the investigator may affect participants’
behaviour. To overcome this, standardised instructions, procedures and
debriefing (see appendix). should be used .Time of the day may also be a
CV, therefore, it’s better to carry the study at lunch time to get a more
representative sample .In our study, some ethical issues were involved
such as deception and not fully informed consent. It is because if the
participants were fully told the actual aim and hypothesis of the study,
they might change their behaviour and try to act as ‘normal’ .In order
to deal with ethical issues such as deception and not fully informed
consent , the participants were debriefed at the end of the experiment and
given the right to withdraw their results. Also, all results should be kept
confidential with no personal detail (except age and gender ) and all
participants should over the age of 16.
Participants
30 participants aged from 16 to 54, (11 males and 19 females),both males
and females were used and they were all pedestrians on the Chester front
street. Opportunity sampling was used and I used lunchtimes to find and
ask people to participate.
Materials
.Standardised recruitment statement - statement which asked the willing of the participants to take part in the study (Appendix 3 )
.Standardised instructions – briefly describe what they would do in the study (Appendix 3)
.Standardised debriefing -– to explain the actual aim and hypothesis of the study and tell them they have the right to withdraw (Appendix 4)
.Positive primacy story and negative primacy story
.Questionnaires
Procedures
On 21st June 2008 at about 12:30 pm, we went to Chester front street to
find the participants .We split into two groups standing opposite of the
street ,one group was using the positive primacy story whereas another
group was using the negative primacy story .We used standardised
recruitment statement to ask the participants if they wished to participate
in our study. If they agreed to take part, then we used standardised
instructions to describe what they would do in the study. However if they
rejected, we just said ‘Thank you’ and let then go. They read the story
only once then it was taken off. They were given a questionnaires to rate
Bob in terms of certain personality traits. We then debriefed the
participants (using standardised debriefing statement) and gave them the
right to withdraw .
Discussion
The aim of the experiment is to see how first impression is applied in the
21st century .The finding of this investigation shown a significant
difference in the number of positive and negative rating between the
positive primacy group and the negative primacy group .For positive
primacy story, all of the 15 participants gave an overall positive response
to what they would say Bob was .For the negative primacy story, 12
participants gave Bob an overall negative impression ,whereas 3 gave
answers showing that they thought Bob was an overall positive person .
The Chi Square test was significant when less than or equal to 0.05 level
and the results was supported by the data collected, the observed value
(20) is greater than the critical value (3.84). Thus, the alternative
hypothesis will be retained.
There has been much research into first impression .Since early research
by Luchins [1957], he found that when questioned about a character 's
behaviour after hearing a story , participants who hear the story being the
positive one first will rate the person more positively than those who hear
story describing the negative one first. Therefore, his study suggested that
people tend to regard the first information as revealing the real person and
seen as a typical of the person and we tend to give greater weight to the
information we get first. The results of the Luchin study revealed that
people evaluation of Jim's characteristics depended on the order in which
they had received the information about Jim.
Anderson [1974] argued that while forming an initial impression we are
likely to pay more attention on the first information than the subsequent
one. The later traits have less effect because peoples’ attention declines as
additional adjectives are presented.
Hendrick and Constanini [1970] provided more evidence on primacy
effect, they found that primacy seems to prevail unless participants are
specifically instructed to attend closely to all information.
However, these studies were laboratory-based. Participants are forced
into forming an impression of another person in an artificial environment,
which does not often happen in real life. Therefore , we carried a field
experiment with independent group design in Chester front street and we
found that a significant difference in the number of positive and negative
ranting between the positive primacy group and the negative primacy
group revealing that people evaluation of Bob's characteristics depended
on the order in which they had received the information about Bob and
this supports the previous research that first information people received
have a stronger effect than subsequent one on impression formation,
which in turn supports the primacy effect.
One limitation of the study was the participant sample used. Opportunity
sample of the people in Chester-le-street front street was used and so the
sample contained many biases like age, level of intelligence and social
economic background. However, the hypotheses only related the results
to the unrepresentative sample and so are not claiming that they are true
for all ages and social groups or even other countries .Also , only a small
sample was used (30 participants ), therefore the result is not a
representative of the wider population and doesn’t mean the whole
country acts like this.
Another flaw is that the researchers knew the participants (investigator
effect). This may have led the participants to be influenced by social
desirability and put what they thought was the ‘normal’ answer and not
what they actually think. Although standardised recruitment statement,
instruction and debriefing was used, it can still affect the results. Using of
a different target population and sampling technique could tackle this
problem.
Besides, the study may lack ecological validity .As participants were
asked to read a written description of an imaginary person then answered
an questionnaire to rate Bob in terms of certain personality traits. This
does not normally happen in real life situation, as in real life, we form an
impression of a person by looking at his/her appearance, clothing style,
hair-style, language, accent or ethnicity. Therefore, to improve this, we
can take a video out of a person doing what has been described in both
stories, then participants are asked to watched the video.
In an experiment done by Harari and McDavid (1973), it was found that
teachers grade a paper higher if written by a student with an ordinary
name as opposed to an unusual or unpopular name as opposed to when
they were led to believe that the child had an unusual or unpopular name.
Apparently, the teachers were influenced in their decision by the name
that was on the paper. Harari and McDavid suggest teachers may
stereotype first names of students and have higher expectations for those
students with names associated with positive stereotypes. Therefore,
names may affect the judgements and evaluations made by others thus in
turn plays a role in first impression. So instead of using Bob in the story,
we can use Person X / someone to replace the name.
There may have also been the problem of demand characteristics , as
participants knew they were taking part in an psychology study, therefore,
may have known what results were expected and answered accordingly –
whether agreeing with what they thought was ‘normal’ so as not to look
‘wrong’ or disagreeing in order to disrupt the results.
As only a small limited sample was used in this study, the repetition of
the procedure with larger groups seems necessary. Further research could
assess individual differences of the strangers in relation to their
personality ratings. One could also investigate the effects of specific
facial characteristics on strangers' ratings. Many investigators of
impression formation have commented informally about the substantial
differences between subjects. Also, there are many follow up studies that
could be conducted. People from a different age/gender group or
occupation could be studied.
First impression investigation have many implications on daily life .
There has been a rise in the popularity of MySpace®, Facebook ®, and
other social-networking websites visited by over 10 million people each
month .This phenonoment cautions us about posting information that
could disrupt others from seeing us accurately (or at least as we see
ourselves). But don’t we want to avoid giving anyone an inaccurate
impression of what we are like? Therefore, impression research may help
us with this issue.
In conclusion, this investigation has found that found a significant
difference in the number of positive and negative rating between the
positive primacy group and the negative primacy group. Reasons for this
difference could be explained by primacy effect, the first information
people received have a stronger effect than subsequent one on impression
formation.
Reference
1. Anderson, N .H.(1974) .Cited in Gross ,R . (1996 ).Psychology : the Science of mind and behaviour .Third edition . London :Hodder and Stoughton .Pp 362
2. Asch , S . (1946 ) .Cited in Gross ,R . (1996 ).Psychology : the Science of mind and behaviour .Third edition . London :Hodder and Stoughton .Pp 360
3. Harari, H., & McDavid, J.W. (1973) . Cited in Gross ,R . (1996 ).Psychology : the Science of mind and behaviour .Third edition . London :Hodder and Stoughton .Pp 362
4. Hendrick, C. and Costantini, A. F. (1970). Cited in Gross ,R . (1996 ).Psychology : the Science of mind and behaviour .Third edition . London :Hodder and Stoughton .Pp 362
5. Jones et al (1968) . Cited in Gross ,R . (1996 ).Psychology : the Science of mind and behaviour .Third edition . London :Hodder and Stoughton .Pp 361
6. Luchins, A. S. (1957) .Cited in Atkinson , R.C., and Atkinson, R.C ,Smith ,E.E. ,Bem ,D .J. and Hilgowd ,E.R. (1990) .Introduction to Psychology.(tenth edition ).London :Harcaurt Brace Jovanovich .
Websites
AQA is an independent company, limited by guarantee, and a charity. http://www.aqa.org.uk/Accessed on 25th June, 2008
Accessed on 25th June, 2008
Aims and hypothesis
It seems from the earlier research that the order in which the information
is received has an impact on impression formation. Therefore, the aim of
this research is to see whether the first impression is relevant in the 21st
century (the first information received has a greater impact on impression
formation than the second information).The hypothesis is that there will
be a significant difference in the number of positive and negative rating
between the positive primacy group and the negative primacy group. The
null hypothesis is that there will be no significant difference the number
of positive and negative rating between the positive primacy group and
the negative primacy group .The study has a two tailed hypothesis with
level of significant at p = 0.05. The independent variable was whether
positive primacy story or negative primacy story was given to the
participant and the dependant variable was number of positive or negative
rating given to the character (Bob).
Title
First impressions
Results
The level in this experiment is of a nominal scale indicating a non-
parametric test .Since the design was an independent groups design .Chi
square was judged to be the appropriate for analysing the data .The
observed value was 20,the critical value was 3.84, the degree of freedom
= 1,significance is p less than or equal to 0.05 and it was a two tailed
hypothesis .Since the observed value of my results is more than the
critical value ,the null hypothesis must be rejected and the alternative
hypothesis must be accepted.
Appendices
Appendix 1 = Story 1 & 2
Appendix 2 = Questionnaire
Appendix 3 = Standardised recruitment statement & standardised
Instructions
Appendix 4 = Standardised debriefing
Appendix 5 = Calculations and result tables
Appendix 6 = Bar charts of results
