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The primacy‐recency effect in counselor response
Author(s) -
Tyson G. A.,
Kramer Desre
Publication year - 1981
Publication title -
journal of clinical psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.124
H-Index - 119
eISSN - 1097-4679
pISSN - 0021-9762
DOI - 10.1002/1097-4679(198101)37:1<88::aid-jclp2270370115>3.0.co;2-i
Subject(s) - psychology , statement (logic) , focus (optics) , social psychology , applied psychology , linguistics , philosophy , physics , optics
It has been suggested that when responding to a client's statement which contains two sequentially distinguishable messages, a counselor will tend to focus on the latter message, i. e., there is a recency effect. The present study investigated this contention empirically. Twenty‐six experienced telephone counselors each responded to 12 client statements, all of which contained two distinct messages. The responses were classified according to their focus, and chi‐square tests were performed on these frequencies for each statement. The results provided no support for the recency hypothesis, but rather showed that the S s tended to make responses that were either nonspecific or included both messages. It also appeared that the S s responded to the content rather than the positioning of the messages.