The primacy-recency effect in counselor response.

Abstract

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 Ss tended to make responses that were either nonspecific or included both messages. It also appeared that the Ss responded to the content rather than the positioning of the messages.