Quick Note on Primacy Effect in Decision Making

First of all, memory is sensitive to order. People are more likely to recall words (or any information) from a list when they encounter them toward the beginning or toward the end of the list, a phenomenon first described in 1913 by Hermann Ebbinghaus.

There are two separate effects of order: “Primacy,” in which people pay more attention to the first thing they read or hear, and “Recency,” in which people are (surprise!) better able to remember more recent information.

While Primacy and Recency both occur for memory, this is not always the case for decision making.

When people are choosing from a list, they often display a strong Primacy effect. In other words, if something is earlier in the list, people are more likely to choose it. It doesn’t matter if the list is ordered top-to-bottom or left-to-right, and it also (usually) doesn’t matter if people see the whole list at once or one item at a time. If you want people to click on something, put it earlier in the list.

Anyhoo, just something I had read a few months ago and have applied it with a high rate of success in both texting and real-time interactions.


J.J.

Very neat!! i didn't know about this one!
But how do you practically use it when seducing?? examples??

Hey M,

moonrayarc said:

Very neat!! i didn't know about this one!
But how do you practically use it when seducing?? examples??

Click to expand...

Good call! I didn't provide an example of when you might use this, did I? Well, a big one that I've used this for is this:

If I'm unable to pull a girl home after a 1st date, I use this when planning the 2nd date. My goal is always to just have the date happen at my house, but I don't want to make the girl feel pressured into this, so I'll give her a choice between (a) some wine by the fireplace at my pad or (b) we can do dinner / drinks out again. If you put the one you want her to choose (which is option (a) in our case here) 1st, she's more apt to choose that then the 2nd choice you've offered her.

I've also used it when pulling a girl from the bar too (i.e., "You want to head over to my place for a nightcap, or we could go grab some food?"). An added nuance when you're doing this in person as opposed to over text message is to say the 1st option slowly and coherently with a highly-positive emotion behind it, and then just kind of ramble off the 2nd choice in a bored tone with no emotion, therewith framing this as you merely tossing another option at her that's nowhere near as fun/exciting/intriguing as the first thing.


J.J.

I should test this out
Thanx NJ