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anchoring
A random number changes what you pay today.
In a 1974 study, people asked if the percentage of African nations in the UN was higher or lower than 10% guessed lower than those asked if it was higher or lower than 65%.
This anchoring effect shows that the first piece of information you receive sets a mental baseline. Even when that number is clearly random or irrelevant, your subsequent estimates pull toward it like a magnet.
You are rarely starting from zero when you make an estimate.
Where this comes from
- Study
- Tversky and Kahneman, 1974, Science
- What the check found
- The claim accurately identifies the 1974 study and the findings. The omission of the roulette wheel mechanism is a simplification but does not invalidate the factual basis of the claim.
- Confidence
- Well replicated
Related
One of these every day, and every one names the study it came from. When a finding is contested, it says so.