Lee Ross and his colleagues (1984) asked participants to observe the performance of a decision maker who either performed quite well or poorly on a task. The participants then learned that the performance feedback was randomly determined and had no relationship to the decision maker's actual performance. The results showed that participants' impressions of the decision maker's ability were:

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The participants' impressions were still influenced by the original (now-discredited) feedback information, which is known as the "primacy effect". This effect occurs when the first piece of information given about someone or something has a stronger influence on our judgments and impressions than later information. Despite being told that the feedback was random and unrelated to the decision maker's performance, participants still struggled to shake their initial impressions.

Lee Ross and His Colleagues (1984) Asked Participants to Observe