Example 9: How roulette can influence the number of UN countries in Africa

• First ideas drop on a blank slate – when presenting your solutions to the client, the first one does not have to fight with other solutions for space in their mind. It is the clearest, and thus can be regarded as the best.

First of all, set the agenda and stick to it. If the discussion gets stuck, set a time limit. When it runs out, note the necessary points and move forward.

In the case of meetings with colleagues, ask them to send their solutions ahead of the meeting, so everyone can read and evaluate them at their own convenience.

And in the case of clients … use it to your advantage! Present the solution you believe to be the best first and anchor the presentation or discussion around it on purpose.

Examples of anchoring in estimating numbers

Do you think your estimates are the result of well-calibrated sense trained over the years? Decades of research seem to suggest otherwise – most of the time they are easily swayed by random anchors.

In a now famous experiment from 1974, Tversky and Kahneman influenced numbers on a roulette wheel. But don’t worry – it was all in the name of science.

They rigged the wheel in such a way that it landed on either 10 or 65.After the spin, they asked unknowing participants of the study a completely unrelated question: “What percentage of countries in Africa are part of the United Nations?”

Of course. This number served as a really convincing anchor – people exposed to the number 10 guessed on average that singel Costa Rica kvinne 25% of countries were part of the UN, while the guesses of the people exposed to the number 65 were much higher – 45% on average.

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Example 10: Try it yourself: How big is the fuel tank of a jumbo jet?

• How many liters of fuel do you think you need to fill up the tank of a jumbo jet? Is it more, or less than a 1000? How much exactly?

• How many liters of fuel do you think it takes to fill up the tank of a jumbo jet? 100,000 or 200,000? How much exactly?

Why? Because the anchor we provided in the question itself (1000 and 100,000 liters) influenced your guess and gave you the range from which you came to your conclusion. Maybe subconsciously, but those numbers still had a great effect on your guess. Your brain just took the numbers it saw and gave them relevance, even though there was none – the right answer is nearly 400,000 liters.

Example 11: Are economic forecasters rational or biased?

Not even professional macroeconomic forecasters are free of anchoring bias, as found in a study by Campbell and Sharp from 2007.

By studying the difference between forecasts and actual macroeconomic results, researchers found that a significant portion of the differences can be attributed to anchoring bias. As opposed to traditional “first information” anchoring bias, this time they were affected by the salience of the latest data, which acted as an anchor.

They gave more weight to recent events and results of companies just because they were more readily available to them – and anchored their expectations of future growth in results from the last reported period.

Examples of anchoring in negotiations

Negotiations – whether about your salary, the price of goods, or an international contract – are for the most part based on anchoring. But not just one simple anchor – there is a web of anchors and anti-anchors, which are laid down in the course of negotiations to draw boundaries.