anchoring
Sign in to saveAlso known as anchoring effect, focalism
an effect where an individual depends too heavily on an initial piece of information when making decisions
~37 min read
Article
The anchoring effect is a psychological phenomenon in which an individual's judgments or decisions are influenced by a reference point or "anchor" which can be completely irrelevant.
The original description of the anchoring effect came from psychophysics. When judging stimuli along a continuum, it was noticed that the first and last stimuli were used to compare the other stimuli (this is also referred to as "end anchoring"). This concept was notably formalized in behavioral economics by Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman. In their seminal 1974 work, they described anchoring as a heuristic used to make estimates under uncertainty.