Recency Effect

A recency effect is one type of response order effect, whereby the order in which response options are offered to respondents affects the distribution of responses. Recency effects occur when response options are more likely to be chosen when presented at the end of a list of response options than when presented at the beginning. In contrast, primacy effects occur when response options are more likely to be chosen when presented at the beginning of a list of response options than when presented at the end. Response order effects are typically measured by presenting response options in different orders to different groups of respondents. For example, if half of the respondents in a survey are asked, Which of the following is the most important problem facing the country today: the economy or lack of morality? and the other half are asked, Which of the following is the most important problem facing the country today: lack of morality or the economy? a recency effect would be observed if a greater proportion of respondents chose the economy in response to the second question than in response to the first.

In the many studies of response order effects in questions with categorical response options, primacy effects were observed in some cases, recency effects were observed in others, and no significant response order effect was observed in others. One explanation for the mixture of findings comes from satisficing theory. Survey researchers hope respondents will answer questions carefully and thoughtfully, but respondents may not always be able or motivated to do so. Instead, they may shift their response strategies to minimize effort while providing a satisfactory response to the survey question (i.e. known as satisficing). One such strategy involves choosing the first response option that seems reasonable, and this strategy is believed to be responsible for response order effects.

When response options are presented visually, most respondents likely begin by considering the option presented first, then the second option, and so on. So if respondents choose the first reasonable response option they consider, primacy effects are likely to occur. But when response options are presented orally as happens in interviewer-administered surveys, respondents cannot think much about the first option they hear, because presentation of the second option interrupts this thinking. Similar interference occurs until after the last response option is heard, and at that point the last response option is likely to be the most salient and the focus of respondents' thoughts. People may also be most likely to remember the last response options in a long list of response options. So if respondents choose the first reasonable response option they consider, recency effects will occur. Consistent with this logic, mostly primacy effects have appeared in past studies that involved visual presentation, and mostly recency effects have occurred under oral presentation conditions.

In addition to mode of presentation, satisficing theory posits that response order effects depend on three factors: (1) the respondent's ability, (2) the respondent's motivation, and (3) the cognitive difficulty of optimizing inherent in the question. Respondents with greater ability and motivation are less likely to satisfice. Satisficing is also more likely when a question's stem or response choices are especially difficult to comprehend, when a question demands an especially difficult search of memory to retrieve [Page 696]needed information, when the integration of retrieved information into a summary judgment is especially difficult, or when translation of the summary judgment onto the response alternatives is especially difficult. Thus, recency effects in questions with orally presented, categorical response options are likely to be strongest among respondents low in ability and motivation, and for questions that are more difficult.

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