Order Effect

undefined:

Order Effect describes the unique impacts that fronting order has on headmates. It can be a large chain of fronters or a shorter succession of two or three. This includes, but not limited to:
 * Certain headmates not being able to be accessed without being proceeded by specific alter: alters within subsystems, for example;
 * Physiological differences, like "headmate A" showing increased heartrate when proceeded by "headmate B", but showing lowered heartrate when proceeded by "headmate C" ;
 * Increased passive influence;
 * Altered appearance or behavior based on the previous fronter, especially headmates that do not have very defined traits, like fragments; and
 * Certain alters having a natural propensity to front after others, like in-system siblings.

History
"Order effect" is a term with multiple meanings in the context of psychology. It can refer to the structure of survey questions impacting answers, order of treatments given to a patient , and within specific conditions like Bipolar Disorder. Its application to plurality was developed by Frank Putnam, hence the attribution to him.

Related Terms
Polyfragmented systems may be more likely to experience order effect, or systems experiencing rapid cycling episodes, but this is not well proven.