Anchoring Bias
Anchoring Bias - Related Videos
01:25
The Anchoring-and-Adjustment Heuristic
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2020
In order to make good decisions, we use our knowledge and our reasoning. Often, this knowledge and reasoning is sound and solid. However, sometimes, we are swayed by biases or by others manipulating a situation. For example, let’s say you and three friends wanted to rent a house and had a combined target budget of $1,600. The realtor shows you only very run-down houses for $1,600 and then shows you a very nice house for $2,000. Might you ask each person to pay more in rent to get the $2,000...
01:31
Confirmation Biases
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2020
The confirmation bias is the tendency to focus on information that confirms our existing beliefs and ignore information that is inconsistent with our expectations. For example, if you think that your professor is not very nice, you notice all of the instances of rude behavior exhibited by the professor while ignoring the countless pleasant interactions he is involved in on a daily basis. Have you ever fallen prey to the confirmation bias, either as the source or target of such bias? Another...
01:12
Hindsight Biases
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2020
Hindsight bias leads you to believe that the event you just experienced was predictable, even though it really wasn’t. In other words, you knew all along that things would turn out the way they did. Can you relate this to the phrase "Hindsight is 20/20" now? This text is adapted from OpenStax, Psychology. OpenStax CNX.
01:30
Biases II
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2025
Biases such as loss aversion, anchoring bias, and herd behavior significantly affect how people make decisions in everyday situations, often steering them away from logical reasoning. These biases reveal the emotional and social factors that influence people’s choices.Loss aversion is the tendency to fear losses more intensely than valuing equivalent gains. For example, Emma may hesitate to cancel a monthly subscription she barely uses, focusing on the perceived loss of the service rather than...
01:22
Bias
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2023
Bias refers to any tendency that prevents a question from being considered unprejudiced. In research, bias occurs when one outcome or answer is selected or encouraged over others in sampling or testing. Bias can occur during any research phase, including study design, data collection, analysis, and publication. In statistics, a sampling bias is created when a sample is collected from a population, and some members of the population are not as likely to be chosen as others (remember, each member...
FAQs
The initial information establishes a reference point for later judgment, and subsequent adjustment may remain too close to that starting value. This can occur even when the anchor is arbitrary or only weakly relevant to the decision. As a result, the final estimate may reflect the starting suggestion more strongly than the evidence that should guide the judgment.
Anchoring bias does not require the first information to be accurate, useful, or strongly connected to the question. People may still treat it as a starting point and adjust insufficiently from it. This matters because an early suggestion can shape later evaluation even when its relevance is limited, allowing an apparently minor detail to influence the eventual conclusion.
Psychological research examines anchoring across numerical estimation, evaluation, and choice. In numerical tasks, the starting point can influence an estimate; in evaluation, it can affect how an option or person is judged; and in choice, it can shape which alternative appears preferable. These settings show that the bias extends beyond a single type of decision.
Different starting points can guide people toward different reference values before they assess the remaining evidence. Because adjustment from those points may be insufficient, the final judgments can diverge even when the underlying information is the same. This provides a psychological explanation for inconsistent conclusions in situations involving estimates, evaluations, or decisions.
A useful approach is to form an independent estimate before considering another person’s suggestion or an initial reference point. Deliberately identifying alternative reference points can provide more than one basis for judgment, while reviewing the evidence afterward helps test whether the conclusion depends too heavily on the anchor. These practices support more deliberate decision-making.
Its relevance extends to negotiations, hiring decisions, risk assessment, memory, and clinical reasoning. In each setting, an early suggestion or piece of information may influence how later evidence, people, risks, or cases are evaluated. Studying these applications helps explain why initial information can shape consequential judgments and why deliberate review is valuable.