Abstract: Evaluation judgments were affected by information order and not by subsequent unconscious versus conscious deliberation. In three experiments, we examined the influence of early positive information on final evaluations of four objects. Based on a task analysis, we predicted primacy effects in judgments in a sequential data acquisition task. Thinking periods following presentation were used to manipulate conscious or unconscious processing. In all three studies, we found no effects of thinking manipulations but instead found reliable order effects. We developed and tested an online judgment model on the basis of the belief updating model of Hogarth and Einhorn. The model accounted for large proportion of the individual level variability, and model comparison tests supported the presence of a primacy effect.

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