Anchoring - an Effect of Knowledge?

Abstract

A web based program was carried out among Second Year Psychology undergraduates, to determine whether knowledge varied the anchoring effect and thus led to more accurate estimate. The 611 participants each completed sets of questions on the computer, estimating the year for uncertain events with or without anchor. Result indicated that the anchor size had explicit influence on estimation, higher anchor resulted in higher estimates and lower anchor led to lower estimates. However, no evidence showed that knowledge changed the anchoring effect. Also, result did not support the hypothesis that anchor or knowledge had impact on accuracy. This study needed to consider the clarification of knowledge and the overall design for examining accuracy.

The major theoretical issue raised by the study of decision making was that judgments were made based on data with limited validity and biases (Banaji, Hardin, & Rothman, 1993; Tversky & Kahneman, 1974). With biased data, inappropriate judgments can be made, which may lead to a huge impact to an individual’s own benefit, therefore, an individual should consider the biases carefully before any decision is made.

Researchers have been studying how begin bias can intensively influence decision making. Tversky and Kahneman (1974) found that when people estimated uncertain events, the estimations were influenced by values that people had previously showed, even when the number was only randomly generated. They had also found an interesting pattern that when the initial values were high, participants tended to give a high estimation; likewise, when the starting values were low, participants gave a low estimation (Tversky & Kahneman, 1974). This finding suggested decisions could be assimilated toward a comparative judgment, forming the basis of the anchoring effect.

Strack and Mussweiler (1997) argued that instead of the numerical value, it was the information that the anchor activated, that allowed for the...