- Email: [email protected]
Warnings given to observers can eliminate order effects
Psychology of Sport and Exercise 10 (2009) 300–303
Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
Psychology of Sport and Exercise journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/psychsport
Warnings given to observers can eliminate order effectsq Iain Greenlees a, *, Ben Hall a, William Filby b, Richard Thelwell c, Richard Buscombe d, Matthew J. Smith a a
Faculty of Sport, Education & Social Sciences, University of Chichester, College Lane, Chichester, West Sussex PO19 6PE, UK Chelsea School, University of Brighton, East Sussex, UK c Department of Sport and Exercise Science, University of Portsmouth, Portsmouth, UK d Department of Human and Health Sciences, London Metropolitan University, London, UK b
a r t i c l e i n f o
a b s t r a c t
Article history: Received 22 April 2008 Received in revised form 12 August 2008 Accepted 19 August 2008 Available online 27 August 2008
Objectives: The aim of the study was to examine the impact of warnings on order effects in attributions of ability.
Keywords: Impressional primacy Person perception Soccer
Method: Qualified soccer coaches (N ¼ 146) rated the ability of two soccer players (a control and target player) each shown, on video, performing a passing task eight times. For the control player, all participants saw the same footage in the same order. For the target player, participants viewed the same footage with half viewing a declining (successful to unsuccessful) performance pattern and half viewing an ascending pattern. Additionally, coaches either received no warning of the danger of order effects, a warning prior to viewing any footage, a warning prior to viewing the target player or a warning prior to rating the target player. Results: Results indicated that primacy effects were observed in the no warning condition and the warning prior to rating the target. However, when warnings were given prior to observing the target player no order effects were observed. Conclusion: The results indicate that order effects can be eliminated by warning observers of the phenomenon. Ó 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Order effects refer to the observed phenomenon where the order in which information about another person is received influences how that person is evaluated (Asch, 1946). Recently, Greenlees, Dicks, Thelwell, and Holder (2007) provided the first examination of the incidence of order effects when perceivers (coaches, players and spectators) make judgements about the abilities of athletes. Greenlees et al. showed participants a video of a soccer player executing a simple soccer skill in either a descending (starting off well and getting worse) or an ascending order (starting poorly and getting better). Although the footage was identical in both videos (with only the order of presentation being changed), evidence of a primacy effect for attributions of ability was found in that the soccer player received significantly higher ratings when seen performing in the descending order. This research thus indicates that order effects may exert an influence in sport settings. This research supports the body of previous research in attributions of ability (intellectual and psychomotor) that has shown primacy effects (e.g., Jones, Rock, Shaver, Goethals, & Ward, 1968).
q This research was supported by a grant from the British Academy. * Corresponding author. Tel.: þ44 1243 816 437; fax: þ44 1243 816 080. E-mail address: [email protected] (I. Greenlees). 1469-0292/$ – see front matter Ó 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.psychsport.2008.08.004
The implication of Greenlees et al.’s (2007) findings is that order effects have the power to influence an observer’s judgements about an athlete’s ability. Coaches and selectors could make faulty selection decisions and teammates may form faulty impressions of each other (which could influence other-efficacy levels). Thus, there is a need for research to examine ways in which primacy effects can be reduced and/or eliminated. A number of order effect researchers (e.g., Hogarth & Einhorn, 1992; Kruglanski & Webster, 1996) have proposed that primacy effects occur because individuals form an impression early on in a sequence, freeze on that impression and then pay less attention to, and expend fewer cognitive resources processing, later information. Kruglanski and Webster (1996) proposed that individuals will do this in the absence of sufficient motivation and cognitive resources to more fully evaluate every piece of information that they receive. Thus, according to Kruglanski and Webster, any intervention that provides additional motivation and/or frees up cognitive resources to fully process all information will reduce primacy effects. Kruglanski and Freund (1983) proposed that whilst an individual’s cognitive resources may be difficult to control or to change in the short term, an individual’s motivation to process all information equally might be influenced more readily. Kruglanski and Freund argued that an important determinant of such motivation is the fear
I. Greenlees et al. / Psychology of Sport and Exercise 10 (2009) 300–303
of invalidity. This is the fear of incurring costs due to committing a judgemental error (in that it will reflect poorly on the perceiver’s competence levels or it will have an important effect the life of the observed person). Kruglanski and Freund proposed that increases in the fear of invalidity will reduce and/or eliminate primacy effects. Kruglanski et al. (e.g., Kruglanski & Freund, 1983; Richter & Kruglanski, 1998) conducted a series of studies in which they manipulated motivation to form an accurate impression of another person. In these studies, motivation was manipulated by (a) informing participants that their judgements would affect the target person and (b) by informing participants that the accuracy of their judgements would be scrutinised by experts in that field. In both incidents, the researchers found that in those conditions where fear of invalidity was enhanced, primacy effects were reduced. The present study sought to examine the effect of increasing the awareness of participants of order effects. We propose that merely increasing the awareness of order effects will enhance the motivation of people to more fully evaluate all information in a sequence of playing footage in order to avoid making judgement errors. In the only study to have examined the effects of warning participants of order effects, Luchins (1957) showed that warnings that were given either prior to, or in the middle of, viewing information concerning another person reduced order effects. One possible interpretation for this result is that an awareness of the possibility of committing an error of judgement increased participants’ motivation to fully evaluate all information and thus lead them to process all information in the sequence to the same extent. Although Luchins’ (1957) research indicates that warnings aimed at increasing awareness of order effects may be a sufficient intervention to avoid recency or primacy, the research was conducted on a simple impression formation task. No research has examined the impact of warnings when attributions of ability are made. Given the theorising of Kruglanski and Webster (1996) and the findings of Luchins, it was hypothesised that warnings, when given prior to the presentation of any information, would eliminate order effects. It was proposed that these warnings would serve to increase the amount of cognitive resources the participants devoted to attending to and evaluating all information in the sequence of information presented. However, when no warnings are given, it was hypothesised that primacy effects would emerge. In addition, we examined the impact of providing a warning after viewing all the footage of the target person but before the participants were asked to provide a rating. As this warning is given too late for the participants to amend their information processing strategy, it was hypothesised that an order effect would emerge in this condition as participants would have paid less attention to the later information presented. Method Participants The participants were 146 male soccer coaches (mean age ¼ 24.96 years, SD ¼ 6.88 years; mean soccer coaching experience ¼ 3.07 years, SD ¼ 2.68) qualified to at least Union of European Football Association (UEFA) level C. All participants reported themselves as being of white-European ethnicity, all were volunteers, and all signed informed consent forms prior to participation. Ethical approval was obtained according to the ethical clearance procedures from the first author’s university. Materials The stimuli used in this experiment were identical to the stimulus material developed and used by Greenlees et al. (2007). These were two videos, each comprising of footage of the same two
301
male soccer players performing the same simple skill eight times. This skill consisted of receiving and controlling a pass from a teammate, turning past an opponent, and passing to a second teammate. In both the first and second video, the footage of the first player (the control player) was identical. However, the footage of the target player (the second player) in the first video consisted of three good clips, followed by two moderate and three poor (positive to negative order) clips, whilst in the second video this order was reversed (negative to positive order). Measures Ratings of the target To examine their impressions of the players observed, participants were asked to rate each model on five factors using a scale previously used by Greenlees et al. (2007). These factors were football (soccer) ability, ball control, speed of thought, attitude, and athleticism. Each aspect was measured on a 10 point, Likert-type scale (e.g., 1 ¼ poor to 10 ¼ excellent). For the purpose of this study, the scores for each item were summed to give a total score between 5 and 50. Procedure Participants were informed that the purpose of watching the video footage was to examine how people make judgements of the athletes they observe. Participants were randomly assigned to view either the positive to negative or the negative to positive order and were also randomly assigned to one of four warning conditions (no warning, prior to viewing any footage, prior to viewing the target player, prior to rating the target player but after watching the footage of that player). Participants in the three warning conditions were read the same warning. This warning explained the nature of order effects and their potential impact in sport and on soccer coaches and spectators. The warning concluded by asking the participants to consider the impact of order when making their judgements of the players. The video was paused for the duration of the warning. All ratings were made following watching all the footage for a player. Videos were shown to groups of between 5 and 20 coaches. Data analysis To examine the impact of order of presentation and warning two separate, two-way Analyses of Variance (ANOVA) were conducted with the ratings of the players (target and control) being used as dependent variables. Independent-sample t-tests, using a Bonferroni correction (0.05/6 ¼ 0.008), were used to assess where any significant interaction effects occurred. Eta squared (h2) effect sizes were also computed. In line with the recommendations of ClarkCarter (1997), effect sizes of between 0.001 and 0.058 were classified as small, effect sizes of between 0.059 and 0.137 as medium, and effect sizes over 0.138 as large. Results Impact of order and warning on ratings of the control player The 2 (positive to negative vs. negative to positive order) 4 (warning condition) ANOVA revealed no significant main effects for order, F(1,143) ¼ 0.52, p ¼ 0.47, effect size h2 ¼ 0.004, or warning condition, F(3,143) ¼ 1.29, p ¼ 0.28, effect size h2 ¼ 0.03. In addition, the order by warning interaction effect was not significant, F(3,143) ¼ 2.28, p ¼ 0.08, effect size h2 ¼ 0.05. This indicated that when the participants saw the same footage, and in the same order, they provided similar ratings. This gave us confidence that any significant effects seen in the ratings of the target player were due
302
I. Greenlees et al. / Psychology of Sport and Exercise 10 (2009) 300–303
to the manipulations of the footage rather than differences in the ratings of the members of the groups. Impact of order, familiarity and judgement mode on ratings of the target player The 2 (positive to negative vs. negative to positive order) 4 (warning) ANOVA revealed a significant main effect for order, F(1,143) ¼ 6.17, p ¼ 0.01, effect size h2 ¼ 0.04, and for warning condition, F(3,143) ¼ 2.73, p < 0.05, effect size h2 ¼ 0.05. However, these results were superseded by the significant order by warning condition interaction effect, F(3,143) ¼ 3.42, p ¼ 0.02, effect size h2 ¼ 0.07. Follow-up t-tests indicated a significant difference between the positive to negative and the negative to positive condition (indicating an order effect) in the no warning condition (t(38) ¼ 4.79, p < 0.001) but no significant differences between the two order conditions when a warning was given prior to viewing any footage (t(31) ¼ 0.69, p ¼ 0.50), prior to viewing the target player (t(37) ¼ 1.34, p ¼ 0.89) or prior to rating the target player but after viewing his footage (t(37) ¼1.96, p ¼ 0.06). The means and standard deviations of these ratings are presented in Table 1. Discussion The present study set out to examine whether order effects would be influenced by the mere provision of a warning concerning the phenomenon of order effects when judging other people. We hypothesised, based on Kruglanski and Webster’s (1996) work on the need for cognitive closure, that warnings given prior to viewing footage of a target player would eliminate order effects as it would provide individuals with the motivation to avoid invalid decision making and lead them to process the information available to them in a more systematic fashion. We found support for this hypothesis in that when a warning was given to participants no order effects were observed. This agrees with the early research of Luchins (1957), who also found that the nature of order effects could be influenced by the provision of warnings. However, our research does provide the first evidence that warnings may reduce order effects when attributions of ability are made. Although our findings are consistent with our hypothesising concerning the impact of warnings given prior to viewing footage, we also found that warnings given prior to rating the target player, but after viewing him, were successful in eliminating order effects. This finding is contradictory to the proposal that warnings given following observing a target person will have no impact on order effects as perceivers will only be effective when participants are given the warning in time to change their attention to all information. Although our findings do not permit us to answer why the Table 1 Estimated marginal means (SD) for ratings of the target player as a function of order and warning Condition
Positive to negative order
Negative to positive order
Control player No warning Warning prior to viewing any footage Warning prior to viewing target player Warning after viewing target player
25.7 25.6 27.3 25.7
(5.63) (4.94) (4.57) (3.41)
28.8 27.9 25.5 24.5
(3.55) (4.36) (5.81) (7.18)
Target player No warning Warning prior to viewing any footage Warning prior to viewing target player Warning after viewing target player
32.0 30.1 31.2 31.4
(3.94) (4.82) (6.34) (5.20)
26.6 32.2 30.9 26.1
(4.90)* (6.74) (5.64) (8.00)
*p < 0.001.
warning given after viewing the footage eliminated the order effect there are a number of possible explanations that may underlie the current findings. First, it is possible that the participants who received the warning after viewing the target person consciously tried to moderate their ratings of the target person to counteract any potential bias. Second, it is possible that these participants relied solely on their recall of the previous information rather than making ‘on-line’ amendments to their attributions of ability. Tentative evidence for the use of a different information processing/decision-making strategy comes from the finding that, unlike the findings for the other warning conditions, the order effect for the post-viewing warning condition approached significance (p ¼ 0.06) whilst the other warning conditions did not (p ¼ 0.50 and 0.89). However, this is a tentative suggestion and research is needed that examines the potential mechanisms of order effects (i.e., attention to later stimuli) to more fully examine whether different strategies are being used in the different warning conditions. In addition, given that the results for the effects of warnings after viewing all footage displayed a distinct trend towards the predicted primacy effect it is suggested that this is not the most effective strategy for reducing order effects. Overall, the applied implications of these findings are that order effects may be eliminated by the provision of a warning concerning the potential for order effects when judging athletes. Thus, it is possible that coach education could include discussions and examples of order effects in order to increase the awareness of coaches of the phenomenon. However, before this is done researchers may wish to examine the extent to which the provision of warnings about order effects is an effective intervention (a) over a longer period of time and (b) in more ecologically valid settings. First, the length of time that a warning may have an impact for it is difficult to gauge how long order effects will be eliminated after warnings are given. Neither the present study nor the work of Luchins (1957) have examined the extent to which one warning concerning order effects influences the perceptions of observers. If warnings of order effects are to be included in coach education materials, then researchers need to establish whether the effects of the warnings persist over time. In addition, research is needed to examine the extent to which the findings from the laboratory-based research generalise to the more complex coaching environment. Kruglanski and Webster (1996) argued that although enhanced motivation to process all information about another person is essential to the formation of fuller impressions, this motivation is only sufficient when individuals have the cognitive resources to do so. As coaches operate in a complex, information-rich environment in which they may have to process information about many individuals over a prolonged period of time, it can be argued that they may not always have sufficient cognitive resources to allocate to the task of forming impressions of all their charges. Thus, it could be argued that in real-life coaching environments order effects will be observed regardless of the use of warnings. Thus, researchers need to examine the extent to which conditions found within coaching environments may promote or reduce order effects. However, the results of the current study do provide preliminary evidence to suggest that order effects for attributions of ability can be overcome by a relatively simple warning intervention.
References Asch, S. E. (1946). Forming impressions of personality. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 41, 258–290. Clark-Carter, D. (1997). Doing quantitative psychological research: From design to report. Hove, UK: Psychology Press. Greenlees, I. A., Dicks, M., Thelwell, R. T., & Holder, T. (2007). Order effects in sport: examining the impact of order of information presentation on attributions of ability. Psychology of Sport & Exercise, 8, 477–489.
I. Greenlees et al. / Psychology of Sport and Exercise 10 (2009) 300–303 Hogarth, R. M., & Einhorn, H. J. (1992). Order effect in belief updating: the beliefadjustment model. Cognitive Psychology, 24, 1–55. Jones, E. E., Rock, L., Shaver, K. G., Goethals, G. R., & Ward, L. M. (1968). Pattern of performance and ability attribution: an unexpected primacy effect. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 10(4), 317–340. Kruglanski, A. W., & Freund, T. (1983). The freezing and unfreezing of lay inferences: effects of impressional primacy, ethnic stereotyping and numerical anchoring. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 19, 448–468.
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Kruglanski, A. W., & Webster, D. M. (1996). Motivated closing of the mind: ‘‘seizing’’ and ‘‘freezing’’. Psychological Review, 103, 263–283. Luchins, A. S. (1957). Experimental attempts to minimise the impact of first impressions. In C. V. Hovland (Ed.), The order of presentation in persuasion (pp. 62–75). New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Richter, L., & Kruglanski, A. W. (1998). Seizing on the latest: motivationally driven recency effects in impression formation. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 34, 313–329.
Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
Psychology of Sport and Exercise journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/psychsport
Warnings given to observers can eliminate order effectsq Iain Greenlees a, *, Ben Hall a, William Filby b, Richard Thelwell c, Richard Buscombe d, Matthew J. Smith a a
Faculty of Sport, Education & Social Sciences, University of Chichester, College Lane, Chichester, West Sussex PO19 6PE, UK Chelsea School, University of Brighton, East Sussex, UK c Department of Sport and Exercise Science, University of Portsmouth, Portsmouth, UK d Department of Human and Health Sciences, London Metropolitan University, London, UK b
a r t i c l e i n f o
a b s t r a c t
Article history: Received 22 April 2008 Received in revised form 12 August 2008 Accepted 19 August 2008 Available online 27 August 2008
Objectives: The aim of the study was to examine the impact of warnings on order effects in attributions of ability.
Keywords: Impressional primacy Person perception Soccer
Method: Qualified soccer coaches (N ¼ 146) rated the ability of two soccer players (a control and target player) each shown, on video, performing a passing task eight times. For the control player, all participants saw the same footage in the same order. For the target player, participants viewed the same footage with half viewing a declining (successful to unsuccessful) performance pattern and half viewing an ascending pattern. Additionally, coaches either received no warning of the danger of order effects, a warning prior to viewing any footage, a warning prior to viewing the target player or a warning prior to rating the target player. Results: Results indicated that primacy effects were observed in the no warning condition and the warning prior to rating the target. However, when warnings were given prior to observing the target player no order effects were observed. Conclusion: The results indicate that order effects can be eliminated by warning observers of the phenomenon. Ó 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Order effects refer to the observed phenomenon where the order in which information about another person is received influences how that person is evaluated (Asch, 1946). Recently, Greenlees, Dicks, Thelwell, and Holder (2007) provided the first examination of the incidence of order effects when perceivers (coaches, players and spectators) make judgements about the abilities of athletes. Greenlees et al. showed participants a video of a soccer player executing a simple soccer skill in either a descending (starting off well and getting worse) or an ascending order (starting poorly and getting better). Although the footage was identical in both videos (with only the order of presentation being changed), evidence of a primacy effect for attributions of ability was found in that the soccer player received significantly higher ratings when seen performing in the descending order. This research thus indicates that order effects may exert an influence in sport settings. This research supports the body of previous research in attributions of ability (intellectual and psychomotor) that has shown primacy effects (e.g., Jones, Rock, Shaver, Goethals, & Ward, 1968).
q This research was supported by a grant from the British Academy. * Corresponding author. Tel.: þ44 1243 816 437; fax: þ44 1243 816 080. E-mail address: [email protected] (I. Greenlees). 1469-0292/$ – see front matter Ó 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.psychsport.2008.08.004
The implication of Greenlees et al.’s (2007) findings is that order effects have the power to influence an observer’s judgements about an athlete’s ability. Coaches and selectors could make faulty selection decisions and teammates may form faulty impressions of each other (which could influence other-efficacy levels). Thus, there is a need for research to examine ways in which primacy effects can be reduced and/or eliminated. A number of order effect researchers (e.g., Hogarth & Einhorn, 1992; Kruglanski & Webster, 1996) have proposed that primacy effects occur because individuals form an impression early on in a sequence, freeze on that impression and then pay less attention to, and expend fewer cognitive resources processing, later information. Kruglanski and Webster (1996) proposed that individuals will do this in the absence of sufficient motivation and cognitive resources to more fully evaluate every piece of information that they receive. Thus, according to Kruglanski and Webster, any intervention that provides additional motivation and/or frees up cognitive resources to fully process all information will reduce primacy effects. Kruglanski and Freund (1983) proposed that whilst an individual’s cognitive resources may be difficult to control or to change in the short term, an individual’s motivation to process all information equally might be influenced more readily. Kruglanski and Freund argued that an important determinant of such motivation is the fear
I. Greenlees et al. / Psychology of Sport and Exercise 10 (2009) 300–303
of invalidity. This is the fear of incurring costs due to committing a judgemental error (in that it will reflect poorly on the perceiver’s competence levels or it will have an important effect the life of the observed person). Kruglanski and Freund proposed that increases in the fear of invalidity will reduce and/or eliminate primacy effects. Kruglanski et al. (e.g., Kruglanski & Freund, 1983; Richter & Kruglanski, 1998) conducted a series of studies in which they manipulated motivation to form an accurate impression of another person. In these studies, motivation was manipulated by (a) informing participants that their judgements would affect the target person and (b) by informing participants that the accuracy of their judgements would be scrutinised by experts in that field. In both incidents, the researchers found that in those conditions where fear of invalidity was enhanced, primacy effects were reduced. The present study sought to examine the effect of increasing the awareness of participants of order effects. We propose that merely increasing the awareness of order effects will enhance the motivation of people to more fully evaluate all information in a sequence of playing footage in order to avoid making judgement errors. In the only study to have examined the effects of warning participants of order effects, Luchins (1957) showed that warnings that were given either prior to, or in the middle of, viewing information concerning another person reduced order effects. One possible interpretation for this result is that an awareness of the possibility of committing an error of judgement increased participants’ motivation to fully evaluate all information and thus lead them to process all information in the sequence to the same extent. Although Luchins’ (1957) research indicates that warnings aimed at increasing awareness of order effects may be a sufficient intervention to avoid recency or primacy, the research was conducted on a simple impression formation task. No research has examined the impact of warnings when attributions of ability are made. Given the theorising of Kruglanski and Webster (1996) and the findings of Luchins, it was hypothesised that warnings, when given prior to the presentation of any information, would eliminate order effects. It was proposed that these warnings would serve to increase the amount of cognitive resources the participants devoted to attending to and evaluating all information in the sequence of information presented. However, when no warnings are given, it was hypothesised that primacy effects would emerge. In addition, we examined the impact of providing a warning after viewing all the footage of the target person but before the participants were asked to provide a rating. As this warning is given too late for the participants to amend their information processing strategy, it was hypothesised that an order effect would emerge in this condition as participants would have paid less attention to the later information presented. Method Participants The participants were 146 male soccer coaches (mean age ¼ 24.96 years, SD ¼ 6.88 years; mean soccer coaching experience ¼ 3.07 years, SD ¼ 2.68) qualified to at least Union of European Football Association (UEFA) level C. All participants reported themselves as being of white-European ethnicity, all were volunteers, and all signed informed consent forms prior to participation. Ethical approval was obtained according to the ethical clearance procedures from the first author’s university. Materials The stimuli used in this experiment were identical to the stimulus material developed and used by Greenlees et al. (2007). These were two videos, each comprising of footage of the same two
301
male soccer players performing the same simple skill eight times. This skill consisted of receiving and controlling a pass from a teammate, turning past an opponent, and passing to a second teammate. In both the first and second video, the footage of the first player (the control player) was identical. However, the footage of the target player (the second player) in the first video consisted of three good clips, followed by two moderate and three poor (positive to negative order) clips, whilst in the second video this order was reversed (negative to positive order). Measures Ratings of the target To examine their impressions of the players observed, participants were asked to rate each model on five factors using a scale previously used by Greenlees et al. (2007). These factors were football (soccer) ability, ball control, speed of thought, attitude, and athleticism. Each aspect was measured on a 10 point, Likert-type scale (e.g., 1 ¼ poor to 10 ¼ excellent). For the purpose of this study, the scores for each item were summed to give a total score between 5 and 50. Procedure Participants were informed that the purpose of watching the video footage was to examine how people make judgements of the athletes they observe. Participants were randomly assigned to view either the positive to negative or the negative to positive order and were also randomly assigned to one of four warning conditions (no warning, prior to viewing any footage, prior to viewing the target player, prior to rating the target player but after watching the footage of that player). Participants in the three warning conditions were read the same warning. This warning explained the nature of order effects and their potential impact in sport and on soccer coaches and spectators. The warning concluded by asking the participants to consider the impact of order when making their judgements of the players. The video was paused for the duration of the warning. All ratings were made following watching all the footage for a player. Videos were shown to groups of between 5 and 20 coaches. Data analysis To examine the impact of order of presentation and warning two separate, two-way Analyses of Variance (ANOVA) were conducted with the ratings of the players (target and control) being used as dependent variables. Independent-sample t-tests, using a Bonferroni correction (0.05/6 ¼ 0.008), were used to assess where any significant interaction effects occurred. Eta squared (h2) effect sizes were also computed. In line with the recommendations of ClarkCarter (1997), effect sizes of between 0.001 and 0.058 were classified as small, effect sizes of between 0.059 and 0.137 as medium, and effect sizes over 0.138 as large. Results Impact of order and warning on ratings of the control player The 2 (positive to negative vs. negative to positive order) 4 (warning condition) ANOVA revealed no significant main effects for order, F(1,143) ¼ 0.52, p ¼ 0.47, effect size h2 ¼ 0.004, or warning condition, F(3,143) ¼ 1.29, p ¼ 0.28, effect size h2 ¼ 0.03. In addition, the order by warning interaction effect was not significant, F(3,143) ¼ 2.28, p ¼ 0.08, effect size h2 ¼ 0.05. This indicated that when the participants saw the same footage, and in the same order, they provided similar ratings. This gave us confidence that any significant effects seen in the ratings of the target player were due
302
I. Greenlees et al. / Psychology of Sport and Exercise 10 (2009) 300–303
to the manipulations of the footage rather than differences in the ratings of the members of the groups. Impact of order, familiarity and judgement mode on ratings of the target player The 2 (positive to negative vs. negative to positive order) 4 (warning) ANOVA revealed a significant main effect for order, F(1,143) ¼ 6.17, p ¼ 0.01, effect size h2 ¼ 0.04, and for warning condition, F(3,143) ¼ 2.73, p < 0.05, effect size h2 ¼ 0.05. However, these results were superseded by the significant order by warning condition interaction effect, F(3,143) ¼ 3.42, p ¼ 0.02, effect size h2 ¼ 0.07. Follow-up t-tests indicated a significant difference between the positive to negative and the negative to positive condition (indicating an order effect) in the no warning condition (t(38) ¼ 4.79, p < 0.001) but no significant differences between the two order conditions when a warning was given prior to viewing any footage (t(31) ¼ 0.69, p ¼ 0.50), prior to viewing the target player (t(37) ¼ 1.34, p ¼ 0.89) or prior to rating the target player but after viewing his footage (t(37) ¼1.96, p ¼ 0.06). The means and standard deviations of these ratings are presented in Table 1. Discussion The present study set out to examine whether order effects would be influenced by the mere provision of a warning concerning the phenomenon of order effects when judging other people. We hypothesised, based on Kruglanski and Webster’s (1996) work on the need for cognitive closure, that warnings given prior to viewing footage of a target player would eliminate order effects as it would provide individuals with the motivation to avoid invalid decision making and lead them to process the information available to them in a more systematic fashion. We found support for this hypothesis in that when a warning was given to participants no order effects were observed. This agrees with the early research of Luchins (1957), who also found that the nature of order effects could be influenced by the provision of warnings. However, our research does provide the first evidence that warnings may reduce order effects when attributions of ability are made. Although our findings are consistent with our hypothesising concerning the impact of warnings given prior to viewing footage, we also found that warnings given prior to rating the target player, but after viewing him, were successful in eliminating order effects. This finding is contradictory to the proposal that warnings given following observing a target person will have no impact on order effects as perceivers will only be effective when participants are given the warning in time to change their attention to all information. Although our findings do not permit us to answer why the Table 1 Estimated marginal means (SD) for ratings of the target player as a function of order and warning Condition
Positive to negative order
Negative to positive order
Control player No warning Warning prior to viewing any footage Warning prior to viewing target player Warning after viewing target player
25.7 25.6 27.3 25.7
(5.63) (4.94) (4.57) (3.41)
28.8 27.9 25.5 24.5
(3.55) (4.36) (5.81) (7.18)
Target player No warning Warning prior to viewing any footage Warning prior to viewing target player Warning after viewing target player
32.0 30.1 31.2 31.4
(3.94) (4.82) (6.34) (5.20)
26.6 32.2 30.9 26.1
(4.90)* (6.74) (5.64) (8.00)
*p < 0.001.
warning given after viewing the footage eliminated the order effect there are a number of possible explanations that may underlie the current findings. First, it is possible that the participants who received the warning after viewing the target person consciously tried to moderate their ratings of the target person to counteract any potential bias. Second, it is possible that these participants relied solely on their recall of the previous information rather than making ‘on-line’ amendments to their attributions of ability. Tentative evidence for the use of a different information processing/decision-making strategy comes from the finding that, unlike the findings for the other warning conditions, the order effect for the post-viewing warning condition approached significance (p ¼ 0.06) whilst the other warning conditions did not (p ¼ 0.50 and 0.89). However, this is a tentative suggestion and research is needed that examines the potential mechanisms of order effects (i.e., attention to later stimuli) to more fully examine whether different strategies are being used in the different warning conditions. In addition, given that the results for the effects of warnings after viewing all footage displayed a distinct trend towards the predicted primacy effect it is suggested that this is not the most effective strategy for reducing order effects. Overall, the applied implications of these findings are that order effects may be eliminated by the provision of a warning concerning the potential for order effects when judging athletes. Thus, it is possible that coach education could include discussions and examples of order effects in order to increase the awareness of coaches of the phenomenon. However, before this is done researchers may wish to examine the extent to which the provision of warnings about order effects is an effective intervention (a) over a longer period of time and (b) in more ecologically valid settings. First, the length of time that a warning may have an impact for it is difficult to gauge how long order effects will be eliminated after warnings are given. Neither the present study nor the work of Luchins (1957) have examined the extent to which one warning concerning order effects influences the perceptions of observers. If warnings of order effects are to be included in coach education materials, then researchers need to establish whether the effects of the warnings persist over time. In addition, research is needed to examine the extent to which the findings from the laboratory-based research generalise to the more complex coaching environment. Kruglanski and Webster (1996) argued that although enhanced motivation to process all information about another person is essential to the formation of fuller impressions, this motivation is only sufficient when individuals have the cognitive resources to do so. As coaches operate in a complex, information-rich environment in which they may have to process information about many individuals over a prolonged period of time, it can be argued that they may not always have sufficient cognitive resources to allocate to the task of forming impressions of all their charges. Thus, it could be argued that in real-life coaching environments order effects will be observed regardless of the use of warnings. Thus, researchers need to examine the extent to which conditions found within coaching environments may promote or reduce order effects. However, the results of the current study do provide preliminary evidence to suggest that order effects for attributions of ability can be overcome by a relatively simple warning intervention.
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