Firsts define important moments, accomplishments, and transitions. A baby's first steps, a first kiss, the first day at college, a first day on a job. Firsts also define memories, thoughts, and judgments. As we approach the first day of a new year, I will be reflecting on firsts and wine and champagne and kisses.
Since the first memory research by Hermann Ebbinghaus, psychologists have known that firsts are well remembered. If you give people a list of unrelated words to remember, they tend to remember the words at the beginning of the list. About 100 years later, John Robinson investigated a different form of memory firsts - memories for first experiences. People regularly report and describe their first experiences - particularly relationship firsts. The time we first met, our first date, our first kiss, our first sexual experience. Robinson suggested two possible reasons why first experiences are well recalled. He suggested that perhaps firsts are recalled because the experiences become the prototypes for their categories and the base against which related experiences are measured. Robinson thought it was more likely, however, that first experiences are remembered because they begin personal narratives. That first time we met is the starting point for our story. That first experience is rehearsed every time the story of our relationship is told. Fourteenth dates are less likely to be critical in telling the story of our relationship.
Firsts also influence judgment. Consider post-holiday sales. Retailers show you what the price used to be - $49.95. Then they also show you the new price - now only $29.95. The original price is the one you encountered first and it serves as your anchor for how much something like that will cost. The second price is an adjustment to your anchor. Since the adjustment is in your favor, the change makes you feel good (and makes you more likely to reach for your credit card). In this way, firsts play an important role in anchoring and adjustment effects. In essence, the first idea sets the anchor. Any change is an adjustment made away from that anchor.
Anchoring, adjustments, and firsts contribute to the importance of first impressions as well. The first information you receive about someone is crucial. The first information will be well remembered. It will also serve as the anchor that future information will adjust. I like to make a good first impression with my students because then any later adjustments are at least starting from a high point.
In addition to influencing memory and judgment, first is where you want to be if people are going to express preferences. Since it is nearly New Year's, this is where we turn to champagne and wine - particularly wine tasting. Antonia Mantonakis and her colleagues recently published an experiment on how order influences wine preferences. They invited people to participate in a tasting and rating of local wines. They gave people anywhere from 2 to 5 samples and asked people to select their favorite when they were finished tasting. Mantonakis and her colleagues were sneaky researchers because all the samples came from the same bottle (although the people making the judgments didn't know that). Nonetheless people expressed a clear preference for the first wine they sampled.
This preference for the first showed up whether the people tasted 2 or 5 samples of wine. The preference for first showed up for novice tasters and for individuals with more wine tasting experience. Being first is a real advantage (something to think about if you are being evaluated).
As we approach the first moments of the first day of 2011, remember the importance of firsts. We remember firsts, use firsts as judgment anchors, and prefer firsts. As the clock counts down New Year's Eve, you might want to plan your first kiss of 2011 carefully. You'll remember that first kiss, compare other kisses to it, and probably prefer your first kiss. Happy New Year.
