On the Robustness of Anchoring Effects in WTP and WTA Experiments
Fudenberg, Levine and Maniadis re-examined the anchoring manipulation used in the most famous demonstration outside psychology, in which people considered their own identification digits before valuing goods. On common market goods they found very weak anchoring effects. They then applied the same manipulation to binary lotteries, where a participant can work out what the item is worth rather than guess, and found no anchoring effects at all. The authors present this as a limit on the robustness of anchoring rather than as a refutation of it. The lottery result is the informative half, because it identifies the condition under which the anchor stops working: when a better route to the answer exists, the arbitrary number is not used. This vault cites it alongside the original demonstration rather than in place of it.
Fudenberg, Levine and Maniadis re-examined the anchoring manipulation used in the most famous demonstration outside psychology, in which people considered their own identification digits before valuing goods. On common market goods they found very weak anchoring effects. They then applied the same manipulation to binary lotteries, where a participant can work out what the item is worth rather than guess, and found no anchoring effects at all. The authors present this as a limit on the robustness of anchoring rather than as a refutation of it. The lottery result is the informative half, because it identifies the condition under which the anchor stops working: when a better route to the answer exists, the arbitrary number is not used. This vault cites it alongside the original demonstration rather than in place of it.
Written from the abstract, OpenAlex.
What our sources record
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Fudenberg, D., Levine, D. K., & Maniadis, Z. (2012). 'On the robustness of anchoring effects in WTP and WTA experiments.' American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, 4(2), 131-145. Very weak anchoring effects on market goods, none on binary lotteries. doi:10.1257/mic.4.2.131
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- Why the First Price You See Decides What You Pay, Why We Act
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The source
https://doi.org/10.1257/mic.4.2.131
DOI: 10.1257/mic.4.2.131