Anchoring,Activation, and the Construction of Values

Anchoring is a pervasive judgment bias in which decision makers are systematically influenced by random and uninformative starting points. While anchors have been shown to affect a broad range of judgments including answers to knowledge questions, monetary evaluations, and social judgments, the underlying causes of anchoring have been explored only recently. We suggest that anchors affect judgments by increasing the availability and construction of features that the anchor and target hold in common and reducing the availability of features of the target that differ from the anchor. We test this notion of anchoring as activation in five experiments that examine the effects of several experimental manipulations on judgments of value and belief as well as on measures of cognitive processes. Our results indicate that prompting subjects to consider features of the item that are different from the anchor reduces anchoring, while increasing consideration of similar features has no effect. The anchoring-as-activation approach provides a mechanism for debiasing anchoring and also points to a common mechanism underlying anchoring and a number of other judgment phenomena.     

Elaboration and consequences of anchored estimates: An attitudinal perspective on numerical anchoring

In the standard numerical anchoring paradigm, the influence of externally provided anchors on judgment is typically explained as a result of elaborate thinking (i.e., confirmatory hypothesis testing that selectively activates anchor-consistent information in memory). In contrast, theories of attitude change suggest that the same judgments can result from relatively thoughtful or non-thoughtful processes, with more thoughtful processes resulting in judgments that last longer over time and better resist future attempts at change. Guided by an attitudinal approach to anchoring, four studies manipulated participants’ level of cognitive load to produce relatively high versus low levels of thinking. These studies show that, although anchoring can occur under both high and low thought conditions, anchoring based on a higher level of thinking involves greater use of judgment-relevant background knowledge, persists longer over time, is more resistant to subsequent attempts at social influence, and is less likely to result from direct numeric priming.     

Taking the High (or Low) Road: A Quantifier Priming Perspective on Basic Anchoring Effects

ABSTRACT

Current explanations of basic anchoring effects, defined as the influence of an arbitrary number standard on an uncertain judgment, confound numerical values with vague quantifiers. I show that the consideration of numerical anchors may bias subsequent judgments primarily through the priming of quantifiers, rather than the numbers themselves. Study 1 varied the target of a numerical comparison judgment in a between-participants design, while holding the numerical anchor value constant. This design yielded an anchoring effect consistent with a quantifier priming hypothesis. Study 2 included a direct manipulation of vague quantifiers in the traditional anchoring paradigm. Finally, Study 3 examined the notion that specific associations between quantifiers, reflecting values on separate judgmental dimensions (i.e., the price and height of a target) can affect the direction of anchoring effects. Discussion focuses on the nature of vague quantifier priming in numerically anchored judgments.     

The anchoring effect in metamemory monitoring

Judgments about future memory performance (metamemory judgments) are known to be susceptible to illusions and bias. Here we asked whether metamemory judgments are affected, like many other forms of judgment, by numerical anchors. Experiment 1 confirmed previous research showing an effect of informative anchors (e.g., past peer performance) on metamemory monitoring. In four further experiments, we then explored the effects of uninformative anchors. All of the experiments obtained significant anchoring effects on metamemory monitoring; in contrast, the anchors had no effect on recall itself. We also explored the anchoring effect on metamemory control (restudy choices) in Experiment 4. The results suggested that anchors can affect metamemory monitoring, which in turn affects metamemory control. The present research reveals that informative and, more importantly, uninformative numbers that have no influence on recall itself can bias metamemory judgments. On the basis of the current theoretical understanding of the anchoring effect and metamemory monitoring, these results offer insight into the processes that trigger metacognitive biases.     

The Effect of Inference Order and Experience-Related Knowledge on Diagnostic Conjunction Probabilities

Ideally, a decision maker′s diagnostic probability judgments should not be affected by making predictive judgments before making diagnostic inferences. The purpose of this study is to investigate how experience-related knowledge and the inference presentation order affect a decision maker′s diagnostic conjunction probability judgments. Specifically, when decision makers are asked to make diagnoses in different judgment domains with which they have different levels of experience, we examine how making predictions first affects their subsequent diagnostic judgments in a standard conjunction paradigm. Professional auditors with experience in the auditing domain and MBA students with little or no auditing experience participated in the experiment. The results indicate that when the task involves a domain with which people have experience, making predictions prior to diagnoses has a significant influence on their subsequent diagnostic conjunction probabilities. When auditors made diagnoses in a familiar audit task situation, they were strongly influenced by whether or not they were asked to make predictions in advance. However, there was no influence of inference order on auditors′ diagnoses in a medical task, with which they do not have experience-related knowledge. Similarly, MBA students, having no experience-related knowledge in either audit or medical domains, were not affected by the inference order in making diagnoses. In the discussion of these exploratory results, we suggest that this inference order effect may be due to subjects′ anchoring on the predictive probability and insufficiently adjusting it to yield the diagnostic probability judgment.     

How cognitive load affects duration judgments: A meta-analytic review

A meta-analysis of 117 experiments evaluated the effects of cognitive load on duration judgments. Cognitive load refers to information-processing (attentional or working-memory) demands. Six types of cognitive load were analyzed to resolve ongoing controversies and to test current duration judgment theories. Duration judgments depend on whether or not participants are informed in advance that they are needed: prospective paradigm (informed) versus retrospective paradigm (not informed). With higher cognitive load, the prospective duration judgment ratio (subjective duration to objective duration) decreases but the retrospective ratio increases. Thus, the duration judgment ratio differs depending on the paradigm and the specific type of cognitive load. As assessed by the coefficient of variation, relative variability of prospective, but not retrospective, judgments increases with cognitive load. The prospective findings support models emphasizing attentional resources, especially executive control. The retrospective findings support models emphasizing memory changes. Alternative theories do not fit with the meta-analytic findings and are rejected.     

Question-induced cognitive biases in reports of dietary intake by college men and women

In two experiments, investigated how variations in questionnaire structure influence respondents' reports of two aspects of dietary intake--the frequency with which various food items are eaten and the sizes of the portions that are eaten. In Experiment 1, approximately 400 subjects, prior to making a frequency judgment, were asked to think either about a specific occasion or about all the occasions on which they had eaten a particular food. The thoughts that preceded the frequency judgment influenced that judgment: Thinking of the range of occasions on which a food is consumed resulted in higher frequency estimates than thinking only of the most recent occasion. In Experiment 2, the same subjects made judgments about their typical portion sizes of several foods relative to described standards. For only one of eight foods were estimates properly and significantly affected by differences among the described standards. These results suggest that respondents are not particularly sensitive to portion-size definitions. We consider the implications of these phenomena for the development of a general theory of the cognitive processes that subserve health-survey responding.     

Working memory and spatial judgments: Cognitive load increases the central tendency bias

Previous work demonstrates that memory for simple stimuli can be biased by information about the distribution of which the stimulus is a member. Specifically, people underestimate values greater than the distribution’s average and overestimate values smaller than the average. This is referred to as the central tendency bias. This bias has been explained as an optimal use of both noisy sensory information and category information. In largely separate literature, cognitive load (CL) experiments attempt to manipulate the available working memory of participants in order to observe the effect on choice or judgments. In two experiments, we demonstrate that participants under high cognitive load exhibit a stronger central tendency bias than when under a low cognitive load. Although not anticipated at the outset, we also find that judgments exhibit an anchoring bias not described previously.     

知道感与不知道感：两种不同的认知加工过程——一项来自行为实验的证据

脑成像研究表明,准确的知晓感（FOK）可以分为知道感和不知道感,两者可能依赖不同的大脑机制实现。该研究通过两个实验,检验了线索和靶子的频率对FOK判断准确性的影响,并在行为水平上考察了“知道感和不知道感可能通过不同的认知过程来实现”的假设。实验一表明：靶子字的频率对FOK判断的准确性有影响,即靶子为低频字时,FOK判断的准确性降低;同时,线索和靶子的字频对知道感和不知道感判断的等级没有影响。实验二显示：线索熟悉性只影响准确的不知道感判断等级,而靶项目强度只影响准确的知道感判断等级,即产生了非交叉的双重分离。综上,我们发现了靶子的字频对FOK判断准确性的影响,并从行为实验的角度证实,知道感和不知道感依赖不同的认知加工过程。     

Anchors aweigh: a demonstration of cross-modality anchoring and magnitude priming

Research has shown that judgments tend to assimilate to irrelevant "anchors." We extend anchoring effects to show that anchors can even operate across modalities by, apparently, priming a general sense of magnitude that is not moored to any unit or scale. An initial study showed that participants drawing long "anchor" lines made higher numerical estimates of target lengths than did those drawing shorter lines. We then replicated this finding, showing that a similar pattern was obtained even when the target estimates were not in the dimension of length. A third study showed that an anchor's length relative to its context, and not its absolute length, is the key to predicting the anchor's impact on judgments. A final study demonstrated that magnitude priming (priming a sense of largeness or smallness) is a plausible mechanism underlying the reported effects. We conclude that the boundary conditions of anchoring effects may be much looser than previously thought, with anchors operating across modalities and dimensions to bias judgment.     

In the Aftermath of Invalidation: Shaping Judgment Rules on Learning That Previous Information Was Invalid

This study explores whether and how judgment procedures used in evaluating product information are modified after consumers have found that information they had received in the past was invalid. It shows that, following exposure to invalidating messages, respondents tend to switch their dominant mode of processing. In particular, those who focused on the source in making a judgment prior to invalidation (i.e., those using simple processing) switch to a more complex processing of the product information. In contrast, those who previously relied on product information simplify their processing and consider information they have about the source in making judgments. The results are consistent with a cognitive resource explanation that attributes switch in processing mode to the enhanced cognitive demands imposed by attempts to cope with the invalidation.     

The Effect of Cognitive Load on Intent-Based Moral Judgment

When making a moral judgment, people largely care about two factors: Who did it (causal responsibility), and did they intend to (intention)? Since Piaget's seminal studies, we have known that as children mature, they gradually place greater emphasis on intention, and less on mere bad outcomes, when making moral judgments. Today, we know that this developmental shift has several signature properties. Recently, it has been shown that when adults make moral judgments under cognitive load, they exhibit a pattern similar to young children; that is, their judgments become notably more outcome based. Here, we show that all of the same signature properties that accompany the outcome-to-intent shift in childhood characterize the “intent-to-outcome” shift obtained under cognitive load in adults. These findings hold important implications for current theories of moral judgment.     

Applicability increases the effect of misattribution on judgment

Feelings and cognitions influence judgment through attribution. For instance, the attribution of positive feelings and cognitions to a stimulus leads to a positive judgment of that stimulus. We examined whether misattribution is moderated by the applicability of a distractor to the judgment question. For instance, when are people more likely to attribute to a target person the affective and cognitive experiences triggered by a kitten – when trying to judge the person’s cuteness or trustworthiness? The kitten triggers experiences specifically relevant to cuteness, but people might more easily suspect the kitten’s potential influence when judging cuteness rather than trustworthiness. Using the Affect Misattribution Procedure, we found that applicability increases the effect of misattribution on valenced judgments. The results emphasise the importance of specific information (rather than only general valence) in attribution and suggest that high applicability of distractors to the judgment question does not elicit effective correction.     

When knowledge matters—differential effects of available knowledge in standard and basic anchoring tasks

The present research examines whether anchoring effects—the assimilation of a numeric estimate towards a previously considered standard—depend on judges' available knowledge in the target domain. Based on previous research, I distinguish two types of anchoring effects. Standard anchoring is obtained if judges are explicitly asked to compare the anchor to the target. Basic anchoring results if the accessibility of the anchor is increased prior to judgments about the target. I expected that only basic but not standard anchoring is reduced by providing judges with judgment‐relevant knowledge. Using a standard versus basic anchoring paradigm, 112 participants were confronted with a high versus low anchor before estimating the average price of a German midsize car. Prior to this task, participants were provided with information about prices of cars (relevant knowledge) versus kitchens (irrelevant knowledge). Results demonstrate that this knowledge only influenced the magnitude of basic but not standard anchoring effects. This finding demonstrates that knowledge has differential effects in different types of anchoring. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Anchoring unbound

An attitudes and persuasion perspective can broaden our understanding of anchoring by highlighting sources of variability in anchoring effects that have been largely overlooked. As the target article suggests, research guided by this perspective can help identify (1) different types of anchors that exert their influence through different underlying mechanisms, 2) important social psychological moderators of anchoring effects, and 3) sources of variability in the consequences of anchoring for judgment and choice. In this commentary, we take an even broader perspective on the types of anchors that are likely to influence judgment, suggesting four potentially distinct types—intuitive approximations, best/worst case scenarios, environmental suggestions, and magnitude priming. We conclude by discussing how an attitudes and persuasion perspective on anchoring may provide novel insights into the moderators and consequences of anchoring effects in everyday life.     

Judgment processes in motivation: Anchoring and adjustment effects on judgment and behavior

The behavioral correlates of human judgment have received little attention from judgment and decision making researchers. One behavioral domain that provides for the study of judgment-behavior relations is task motivation (i.e., the allocation of time and effort to a task). Judgments of contingent relations are primary components of several theories of motivation, including expectancy theories and the theory of behavior in organizations proposed by Naylor, Pritchard, and Ilgen (1980). The characteristics of heuristic judgment processes are hypothesized to affect contingency judgments and thus behavioral allocations of time and effort. This paper examines the effects of the anchoring and adjustment heuristic upon (a) judgments of future effort and performance and (b) upon actual allocations of time and effort using several types of anchoring information. Results indicate that both irrelevant and relevant information have strong anchoring effects on effort and performance judgments, but do not have concomitant effects on behavior. Implications for the role of judgment in motivation and for the link between judgment and behavior are discussed.     

无处不在的伤害:二元论视角下的道德判断

道德二元论认为人际伤害是道德认知的典型模板.道德判断由规范违反,消极情感,感知到的伤害结合产生, 并经由二元比较与二元完型, 完成从下至上,从上至下的认知加工.道德失声现象的产生源于混淆了主客观伤害; 电车难题剥离了道德二元模型, 有趣但可能不符合普遍的道德认知; 不同领域的道德判断皆可在二元论的框架下得到解释.未来的研究可以考虑:意图与痛苦影响道德判断的实证; 跨文化研究的开展; 统一认知系统与模块化认知系统的辩证; 伤害的人际与非人际划分以及其他相关因素的检验.     

Elaboration and numerical anchoring: Implications of attitude theories for consumer judgment and decision making

Researchers across many domains have examined the impact of externally presented numerical anchors on perceiver judgments. In the traditional paradigm, “anchored” judgments are typically explained as a result of elaborate thinking (i.e., confirmatory hypothesis testing that selectively activates anchor-consistent information in memory). Consistent with a long tradition in attitude change, we suggest that the same judgments can result from relatively thoughtful or non-thoughtful processes, with more thoughtful processes resulting in judgments that have more lasting impact. We review recent anchoring research consistent with this elaboration-based perspective and discuss implications for past anchoring results and theory in judgment and decision making.     

Judgment Difficulty and the Moral Intensity of Unethical Acts: A Cognitive Response Analysis of Dual Process Ethical Judgment Formation

This study analyzes cognitive responses to explore a dual processing perspective of ethical judgment formation. Specifically, the study investigates how two factors, judgment task difficulty and moral intensity, influence the extent of deontological and teleological processing and their effects on ethical judgments. A single experiment on 110 undergraduate research participants found that judgment task difficulty affected the extent of deontological and teleological processing. Although moral intensity affected ethical judgments, it did not produce effects on either deontological or teleological cognitive responses. Results did not support the hypotheses that deontological and teleological cognitive responses would mediate the relationships between the experimental factors and ethical judgments. Overall, the results support continued research of factors that affect the nature of information processing in ethical decision situations and the use of cognitive response analysis as a tool for conducting this research.     

Anchoring effects on performance judgments

Three studies were conducted investigating the effects of irrelevant anchors on performance judgments. Both a lab and field study demonstrated that an alternative anchoring manipulation that did not involve an explicit comparative question had effects on performance judgments similar to a traditional anchoring manipulation. The final study examined whether the anchoring effects were more likely when the anchor was highly applicable to the final judgment. The results indicated that both highly applicable and low applicable anchors produced an anchoring effect, but the highly applicable anchors had a larger effect on performance judgments. Evidence was also found for asymmetrical anchoring effects. In two of the three studies, high anchors increased performance judgments relative to the control group, whereas low anchors were not significantly different from the control group.