Social Behavior and Personality, 9 (2): 223-226 (1981) © Society for Personality Research (Inc.) GOOD NEWS OR BAD NEWS FIRST? LinpDA L. MARSHALL Rozert F. Kipp Boston University Commonsense reasoning predicts that people prefer hearing bad news before good news rather than the reverse. In two role-playing experiments, subjects were asked if they preferred to hear good news/bad news or bad news/good news, In a third experiment, subjects believed they would be receiving good and bad information about themselves from a personality, social sensitivity, or intelligence test. Results from all three studies showed that subjects overwhelmingly preferred to hear bad news first. Two pos- sible interpretations of the results were offered. One interpretation de- rived from the gain-loss phenomenon in interpersonal attraction and the other from Helson’s adaptation-level theory. Research on the transmission of information has demonstrated that for a variety of reasons and in many settings, people are reluctant to transmit bad news to others (Tesser and Rosen, 1975). A number of important implications follow from this finding. A person, for example, may not be aware of short- comings that should be corrected because people avoid telling her/him some- thing bad. How can learning occur if individuals are reluctant to deliver bad news? Tesser and Rosen have also noted that physicians were reluctant to dis- cuss terminal illness with patients. In these examples, it can be considered un- fair or even harmful to not transmit bad news. Although it is doubtful that anyone actually desires to hear bad news, most people probably realize that they will both give and receive bad news during their lifetimes. Given the reluctance to transmit or receive bad news, the ques- tion becomes how to make the best of a bad communication. People may res- pond in several ways. They may blurt out the bad news or choose to soften it in some way. They may manufacture or emphasize some piece of good news to accompany bad news. They may try to induce a good mood in the recipient before giving her/him the bad news. Simply put, is there a good way to deliver bad news? One possibility is to couch bad news in good news. Given a choice, people may want to hear good news before bad, mostly to mitigate the negative effects of the bad news. Being in a good mood may allow people to take bad news in stride. Acquaintances, friends, spouses, and co-workers often try to “pick the right time” to transmit potentially unsettling information. People often attempt to induce a good mood in the recipient before telling her/him bad news. For example, a supervisor might say, “That was an excellent report you submitted. It just needs a few changes to give it a different slant.” In reality the report actually needs to be rewritten entirely, a fact the recipient discovers when the changes are listed. It may be that tactics like these do indeed prepare people for bad news. 223224 SOCIAL BEHAVIOR AND PERSONALITY On the other hand, commonsense suggests that people may prefer to hear bad news first, before good. The notions of “saving the best for last” and get- ting unpleasantness over with as soon as possible are common. Sweet desserts follow meals. Children are given milk and cookies after they study. In general, rewards follow completion of unpleasant or difficult tasks. To test this reasoning, three experiments were conducted to determine whether recipients prefer to have others prepare them for bad news by first telling them good news, or whether they prefer to hear the bad news first be- fore the good. EXPERIMENT 1 A role-playing experiment was conducted in which 12 males and 16 females were approached in airports, airplanes, stores, and restaurants by a female experimenter. The woman asked, “Given a choice, which would you prefer to hear first, good (bad) news or bad (good) news?”, counterbalancing for order of presentation. Males and females were distributed equally in the two condi- tions. Six subjects (23%) preferred good news first, while 20 (77%) subjects pre- ferred hearing bad news before good (x2(1) = 24.66, p < 0.001, Yates’ cor- rection). Two people expressed no preference. There was no significant differ- ence in preference for good or bad first by sex or the estimated age of subjects. EXPERIMENT 2 Twenty-nine undergraduates enrolled in psychology courses were given a sheet of paper containing the question, “Given a choice, which would you prefer to hear first, good (bad) news or bad (good) news?” Males and females were equally represented in the two conditions. ‘As in the previous study, most subjects (82.8%) preferred to hear bad news first. Only a few (17.2%) preferred hearing good news first (x7(1) = 26.42, P < 0.001, Yates’ correction). Subjects in these first two experiments were asked also to state reasons for their preferred order. Those preferring bad news first often gave reasons that were focussed on the characteristics of the good news. For example, they wanted to “save the best for last,” “perk up with the good,” or “have something to look forward to.” Some who preferred the bad-good order simply wanted “to get the bad over with.” The people who preferred good news first wanted to be “braced” or “prepared” for the bad news. Two people thought that being in a good mood weuld make the bad news seem “less bad.” In line with commonsense reasoning, 11 subjects in these two experiments wanted to “save the best for last” while seven simply wanted to “get the bad over with.” However, 8 of the subjects who preferted good news first seemed to believe that the good news would put them in an improved mood so as to prepare them for the forthcoming bad news. On the other hand, 17 of those who preferred bad news first, thought the bad-good order would leave them feel- ing better. In sum, it appears that most subjects preferred to hear bad before good to help buffer or re-establish a positive feeling in the face of foreboding news. EXPERIMENT 3' In the two role-playing situations, subjects did not hear or anticipate hearing any real news. To further extend our findings, a third experiment was conducted in which subjects were given a choice between hearing diagnostic feedback, some of which was bad and some good. ‘The authors wish to thank Rick Bernstein for his outstanding contribution as the experimenter in this experiment.MARSHALL AND KIDD 225 Twenty-seven male and female introductory psychology students were ran- domly assigned into one of three conditions. One third of the subjects took a test supposedly designed to measure their personality. A second third were told that the same test assessed social sensitivity, and the final third thought it measured intelligence. A male experimenter, blind to the hypothesis and treatments, handed subjects one of three folders containing instructions and a test booklet. The instructions were identical except for the statement describing the “purpose” of the test as either an assessment of personality, social sensitivity, or intelligence. All test booklets contained the Coloured Progressive Matrices Sets (Raven, 1950). After completing the test, the experimenter collected subjects’ questionnaires and left the room ostensibly to score them, He returned and told the participants that he had analyzed their test and had good (bad) news or bad (good) news for them. He then asked them which they wanted to hear first. The findings again confirmed the hypothesis. One subject in two conditions expressed no preference and was dropped from the analysis. Three subjects (12%) preferred to hear good news first and the remaining 22 (88%) pre- ferred bad news first (y'(1) = 20.43.» < 0.001. Yates’ correction). There ‘were no differences in preference for bad news across the three diagnostic treat- ment conditions. DISCUSSION Taken together, these experiments clearly demonstrated that, given a choice, people prefer to hear bad news before good news. This effect held in both role-playing experiments and in one “diagnostic feedback” experiment. Even though people may be reluctant to transmit bad news (Tesser and Rosen, 1975), they do seem to have a preferred way of hearing it. Possible explanations for this strong preference for bad news first derive from two notions, Aronson and Linder’s (1965) gain-loss interpretation and Helson’s (1964) adaptation-level theory. The gain-loss hypothesis in interpersonal attraction suggests that people like other people who initially dislike them but eventually come to view them posi- tively. This particular pattern of feedback (negative to positive) is more posi- tively evaluated by people who experience it than a pattern of feedback that is uniformly positive. In the present studies, the bad news followed by good news may have evoked a more favorable reaction in subjects because the pattern of anticipated information presented a change from negative to positive. The posi- tive to negative alternative (good news before bad) was less pleasing. There is no clear rationale, however, why the bad news/good news ordering should be inherently more pleasing and thus preferred by subjects. According to Helson’s (1964) adaptation-level theory, feelings are experienced as more pleasant or unpleasant the greater the discrepancy or distance of the initial effect from the present one. Anticipating bad news first may have lowered affect levels. The subsequent good news could then be experienced as more pleasant because of its directional discrepancy from the initial negative level. Anticipating bad news may have lowered people’s moods with the subsequent good news serving to change these feelings into positive ones. Unfortunately, there was no direct evidence to suggest which of these interpretations offers the most compelling data. REFERENCES Aronson, E.; Linder, D., 1965: Gain and loss of esteem as determinants of inter- personal attractiveness. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 1: 156-71. Helson, H., 1964: Adaptationtevel Theory: An Experimental and Systematic Approach to Behavior. Harper and Row, New York.226 SOCIAL BEHAVIOR AND PERSONALITY Raven, J. C., 1950: Coloured Progressive Matrices Sets A, AB, B. Lewis & Co., London. Tesser, A.; Rosen, S., 1975: The reluctance to transmit bad news. In L. Ber- kowitz (Ed.), Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, Vol. 8, Academic Press, New York. pp. 194232. Reprints of this paper are available from Dr Robert F. Kidd, Department of Psychology, Boston University, 64 Cummington Street, Boston, Massachusetts 02215, U.S.A.Copyright © 2002 EBSCO Publishing