The first shall be last

Another season of "American Idol" is upon us, and if you want some tips for handicapping the competition, you've come to the right place. In a study published in 2005, Carnegie Mellon researcher Wändi Bruine De Bruin found that participants who appear toward the end of juried competitions do better than those who perform at the beginning. Bruine De Bruin studied European figure-skating competitions and the Eurovision Song Contest which, like "American Idol", includes voting by fans at home. She found that participants who performed near the end of the contests received higher marks from judges than those who appeared earlier. It's a phenomenon known as the serial position effect, and if you think it doesn't apply to you because you can't even sing in the shower, be warned that Bruine De Bruin believes that it could apply to a variety of situations, including job interviews. You can read more here.

Jonathan Potts