PersuasionNo. 55

Serial position effect

Choose the position of your messages carefully. The ‘primacy effect’ is the tendency to remember the first thing you read. The ‘recency effect’ is the tendency to remember the last. Everything you put in the middle of your message is more likely to be forgotten. Make sure the good stuff comes first or last (or first and last).

From ‘The Multi-Store Model of Memory’ by Atkinson and Shiffrin

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Check: is your strongest point first or last? Move it if it's buried in the middle.

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