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The Most Generous Interpretation
What we end up concluding depends on where we start our thinking. And that is something that we may be able to control.
One of the more remarkable phenomena in cognitive behavioural science is the anchoring effect. It describes how, when are uncertain about the answer to a question, our guess may be influenced by a given reference point (the anchor). If we don’t know a particular fact precisely, this gives us some initial idea, from which we can then produce what we hope is a more accurate estimate. Interestingly, alongside the more obvious (and not necessarily benign) manifestations and applications, there is a peculiar way in which we can use it to our advantage.
Weighty anchors
The anchoring effect is strong, and hard to avoid, even if you are aware of it, or if the reference point is manifestly off-beam. Fritz Strack and Thomas Mussweiler, at university of Würzburg, conducted a study in which they asked participants first to compare facts (like the average length of a whale — correct answer: 33m) with an anchor, and state whether the true value was greater or smaller, after which they had to supply an actual estimate. One group was given an implausibly high anchor (900m), the other an equally unlikely low anchor (20cm). The average estimates of…
