STUDIES IN PERSUASION: II. PRIMACY-RECENCY EFFECTS WITH JAPANESE STUDENTS.

This article presents practical expression to the primacy-recency problem in persuasion. The conflicting results obtained by the investigators may be viewed in retrospect as presaging a series of later studies that have generated similarly contradictory and inconclusive findings. Scientists presented subjects with arguments both proposing and attacking higher protective tariffs for the United States. Half of subjects heard the affirmative argument first, and the remaining half heard the negative argument first. Opinion questionnaires were administered initially to all of the subjects and again after each of the two opposing communications. In the present experiment, Japanese university students were exposed to conflicting communications on the subject of the Cold War in an attempt to determine whether the first or the second of the arguments would be more effective in influencing attitudes. The possibility existed that the lively concern of Japanese students with international issues might generate results less equivocal than those that have been reported with American subjects.