Content area
Abstract
People's estimates of uncertain quantities are commonly influenced by irrelevant values. These “anchoring” effects were originally explained as insufficient adjustment away from an initial anchor value. The existing literature provides little support for the postulated process of adjustment, however, and a consensus seems to be emerging that none takes place. I argue that this conclusion is premature, and present evidence that a process of adjustment produces anchoring effects when the anchors are generated automatically by participants themselves (Studies 1, 2, 3), that such adjustments are insufficient (Studies, 4, 5, 6, and 7) because they proceed through a series of confirmatory hypothesis tests (Studies 8 and 9) that require scarce attentional resources (Studies 10, 11, and 12). I also provide evidence that anchoring and adjustment may be a fundamental feature of social judgment by demonstrating its operation in perspective taking (Studies 13 and 14). These results suggest it is time to re-introduce anchoring and adjustment as an explanation for some judgments under uncertainty.
