In the real world, people prefer their last whisky when tasting options in a long sequence

When people in laboratory studies sample products in a sequence, they tend to prefer options presented first and last. To what extent do these primacy and recency effects carry over to real-world settings where numerous sources of information determine preferences? To investigate this question, we c...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:PloS one 2018-08, Vol.13 (8), p.e0202732-e0202732
Main Authors: Quigley-McBride, Adele, Franco, Gregory, McLaren, Daniel Bruce, Mantonakis, Antonia, Garry, Maryanne
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adult
Alcoholic Beverages - analysis
Alcohols
Behavior
Biology and Life Sciences
Decision making
Field study
Humans
Influence
Laboratories
Medicine and Health Sciences
Memory
Physical Sciences
Preferences
Psychology
Research and Analysis Methods
Serial Learning
Social Sciences
Taste - physiology
Whiskey
Whisky
Young Adult
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Summary:When people in laboratory studies sample products in a sequence, they tend to prefer options presented first and last. To what extent do these primacy and recency effects carry over to real-world settings where numerous sources of information determine preferences? To investigate this question, we coded archival data from 136 actual whisky tastings each featuring seven whiskies. We analyzed people's ratings of whiskies featured at different serial positions in the tastings. We found a recency effect: people gave their highest rating to whiskies in the last position, and voted the last whisky as their favorite more frequently. This recency effect persisted when we controlled for the counter explanation that whiskies with higher alcohol content tended to occupy later serial positions. The recency effect also persisted when we controlled for the age of the whiskies. Taken together, our findings suggest that the order of presentation matters in real-world settings, closely resembling what happens in laboratory settings with longer sequences of options.
ISSN:1932-6203
1932-6203
DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0202732