The Interval Anchoring Effect.

Abstract

The anchoring effect refers to a decision bias that initial irrelevant information can influence late judgment. So far, most (if not all) studies on the anchoring effect adopted only point anchors (e.g., "Do you want to buy a computer with a price higher or lower than $1,000?"). In reality, people also use interval anchors (e.g., "Do you want to buy a computer with a price within $800-1,200?"). Can interval anchors also produce anchoring effect? Which kind of anchors have stronger anchoring effect? To answer these questions, we conducted four experiments involving quite different content. In each experiment, we found extremely significant anchoring effects for point anchors and interval anchors, respectively, but no significant difference between them. The results suggest that rarely researched interval anchors can be as powerful as intensively investigated point anchors and thus deserve more research and applications henceforth.