Controversy of the Topic and the Order of Presentation in Persuasive Communications

A principal idea behind the prediction of a primacy effect in the persuasive co~nmunication situation when opposed arguments are successively presented is that initial information will create a set and this set will interfere with the reception of the second, opposition communication. The likelihood of such a set being produced increases with the novelty of the issue. Following chis set, opinion change will occur in the direction of the initial argument, whether it be for or against the issue involved caeteris prrribzbs. That this proposition is tenable, has not yet been demonstrated by existing research. There are at least two difficulties. The primacy hypothesis may not be valid as a principle in con~munication, and/or it is difficult to experimentally construct a situation where material is actually presented for the first time to a listening S. Even if S has never been confronted with a particular issue before, generalization from other similar issues may provide a certain base of partial familiarity. For example, viv~section proved to be an unfamiliar issue to college students (Lana, 1961), but ideas about cruelty to animals and the acceptability of science probably entered into S’s evaluation of arguments presented for and against this practice. Perhaps the only successful approach to insure first exposure to material is to utilize adjectives or phrases which describe imaginary persons in the manner of Asch (19’59), Luchins (1958), and Anderson and Barrios ( 1961 ) . However, a certain degree of relevance to communications concerning social issues is lost with this technique, while it is maintained by utilizing prose passages about contemporary social issues in the manner of Hovland (1957), Lund ( 1925 ) , Cromwell ( 1950), Lana ( 1961 ) . Prose passages concerning contemporary problems can be used to examine order effeccs under conditions when familiariry with the topic, controversy of the topic, or interest in it, are something other than zero. Thus it may be possible for a primacy effect to occur when initial presentation of macerial has not been achieved by the experimenter. The effeccs of two levels of familiarity on order of presentation of a controversial topic was examined by Thomas, Webb, and Tweedie ( 1961 ) , with results indicating neither significant primacy nor recency effects. However, controversy of the topic was constant for all groups.