Do People Avoid Extreme Judgments in the Beginning? Calibration and Contrast as Explanations of Serial Position Effects in Evaluations

In serial evaluations (e.g., teachers evaluating student performances; managers evaluating job applications), people typically provide more extreme judgments at the end of a series compared to the beginning. Serial positions thereby represent an unwanted contamination of the judgment process; bad performances profit and good performances suffer from early positions. Prior research suggested a motivational calibration explanation: People withhold extreme judgments at the beginning to avoid consistency violations throughout the series. However, more extreme ratings at the end might also follow from comparison-based contrast effects. Three experiments (n = 509) tested the contributions of calibration processes at early positions and contrast effects at later positions to the overall serial position effect. The results replicated the avoidance of extreme judgments at early positions and provided support for comparison-based contrast (Exp. 1-3) and calibration influences (Exp. 3). These data suggest differential interventions to reduce unwanted serial position effects.