Do You Want the Good News or the Bad News First? the Nature and Consequences of News Order Preferences

Information often comes as a mix of good and bad news,prompting the question,do you want the good news or the bad news first? in such cases,news-givers and news-recipients differ in their concerns and considerations,thus creating an obstacle to ideal communication. in three studies,we examined order preferences of news-givers and news-recipients and the consequences of these preferences. study 1 confirmed that news-givers and news-recipients differ in their news order preferences. study 2 tested two solutions to close the preference gap between news-givers and recipients and found that both perspective-taking and priming emotion-protection goals shift news-givers' delivery patterns to the preferred order of news-recipients. study 3 provided evidence that news order has consequences for recipients,such that opening with bad news (as recipients prefer) reduces worry,but this emotional benefit undermines motivation to change behavior. © 2013 by the society for personality and social psychology,inc.