I feel as if the typical personal story relating to primacy is one where someone makes a bad first impression and then due to the primacy effect it takes a long time to reverse. However, I have an example that it somewhat the opposite of what one would expect…
First impressions are critical. Social scientists have shown that information presented earlier in a sequence often has a greater impact than information presented towards the end of a sequence; this occurrence is called the primacy effect (Asch, 1946).
I have always been told that first impressions are very important. A couple years ago, I was asked by a neighbor if I could babysit for her two girls (one of our other neighbors had recommended she call me). Of course I said I would, I did not know the girls at the time so I showed up with I big smile on my face and we played games and watched a movie and I tried really hard to be the “cool” babysitter. Little did I know that these girls were brats. After babysitting for them a couple more times, I had had it. They were rude, obnoxious, fought the entire time, and never listened to what I would say. I used to babysit for a lot of different families, and these were by far the worst kids I had ever babysat. So I tried to start being “less fun” in hopes that they wouldn’t want me to babysit as often. And when they would call to ask if I was available, I would make up all sorts of excuses. However, no matter how “not fun” I acted or how many times I said no I was still the first person they would call. Apparently my first impression was outshining all of my more recent behavior. I did not want to have to tell the parents that their kids were terrible and I did not want to babysit for them.
Finally, I think they started to get the hint, and the phone calls came less often. But this was definitely one situation where I wished that I hadn’t made a good first impression. I was trapped by the primacy effect J
Asch, S. E. (1946). Forming impressions of personality. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 41(3), 258-290.
Wow, I have definitely had this same experience. I was babysitting for a little five year old girl and it was awful, but apparently she had a lot of fun because her parents kept calling me and I just wouldn't answer or would say I was busy and eventually the phone calls stopped!
ReplyDeleteI had an opposite experience. When i was in junior high I lived on a cul-de-sac with a bunch of younger kids. There was alot of good kids that were easy to babysit on the street however there was also a family who had three kids with a reputation for being brats( that just so happened to be my neighbors). I refused to babysit for the family after my sister had an awful experience. The family ended up hating my family becuase they thought we were stuck up. The kids ended up doing all kinds of things like licking lolipops and sticking them to my parents cars, throwing trash in our yard, and peeing on the fence. I still don't know if it would have just been easier to babysit them then deal with all the other stuff.
ReplyDelete