Similarity, multiple estimations, and the anchoring effect.

Area of Science:

• Cognitive Psychology
• Social Psychology

Background:

• Anchoring is a cognitive bias where initial information influences subsequent judgments.
• Two prominent theories, Selective Accessibility and Scale Distortion, attempt to explain anchoring effects.

Purpose of the Study:

• To compare the predictive power of Selective Accessibility and Scale Distortion theories.
• To investigate how perceived dissimilarity and successive estimations influence anchoring tasks.

Main Methods:

• Two studies were conducted involving successive estimation tasks after a single comparison.
• Effect sizes of anchoring were correlated with semantic similarity between comparison and estimation objects.
• Stimuli included aircraft (category-defining features) and hotels (external features).

Main Results:

• A positive correlation was found between anchoring effect size and semantic similarity.
• This finding supports the Selective Accessibility theory.
• The results were consistent across both studies with varying stimuli.

Conclusions:

• Selective Accessibility provides a more robust explanation for anchoring phenomena.
• Semantic similarity plays a crucial role in the magnitude of anchoring effects.
• The theory's predictions hold true for both category-defining and external features.