Perform Last, Finish First?
American Idol wannabes, listen up: Performing at the end of each competition may increase your chances of advancing to the next round.
A new study suggests that judges and audiences alike tend to rate contestants who perform later more positively than those who perform early on in the competition.
Researchers found scores in the Eurovision Song Contest — a televised pop song competition that includes audience voting — and in World and European Figure Skating Contests increased as the competitions progressed.
For example, singers who appeared near the end of the Eurovision contests earned higher scores from judges and audience members than those who performed at the beginning of the program.
Researchers say this phenomenon, known as the serial position effect, doesn't merely affect performers, but it may also play a role in everyday situations such as job interviews and student exams.
"A friend of mine asked to go last in a series of job interviews after hearing about my research," says researcher Wände Bruine De Bruin of Carnegie Mellon University, in a news release. "She got the job. I like to think that she got the job because she has great job skills, but order effects may have tipped the balance for her."
In the study, which appears in the February issue of Acta Psychologica, researchers analyzed results from 47 editions of the Eurovision Song Contests from 1957-2003 and the European and World Figure Skating Championships from 1994-2000.
The results showed that the scores of the singers increased with their serial position, even though the judges were asked to evaluate each performer immediately after his or her performance in a step-by-step fashion.
Ratings from audience members also increased as the performer's place in the order of performance increased.
Although researchers say televoters who tuned in late may have voted for performances they actually saw, which favors those who performed late, national juries who viewed all performances also tended to rate later performers higher.
A similar effect was found in the figure skating competitions when the judges were asked to evaluate all competitors at the end of the contest as well as after each individual performance.
Researchers say the results suggest that serial position effects may threaten the fairness of competitions and it may be wise to randomly determine the order of competition in the first round and then reverse the order in the second.
In fact, researchers say the tradition of letting figure skaters who received better scores in the first round of competition perform later in the second round may, inadvertently, aggravate these serial position effects.
Sources: Bruine De Bruin, W. Acta Psychologica, February 2005; vol 118: pp 245-260. News release, Carnegie Mellon University.
By Jennifer Warner
Reviewed by Brunilda Nazario, MD
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