Knowledge matters: Anchoring effects are moderated by knowledge level
Smith, Windschitl and Bruchmann ran four studies on whether knowing about the subject reduces anchoring, a question the earlier literature had answered inconsistently. It does. Greater knowledge was associated with smaller anchoring effects whether knowledge was measured by asking people to rate their own or by testing it objectively. Participants from the United States and India anchored less when answering questions about their own country than about the other one, which is the same finding arriving through a different route. Further studies in the paper reproduced the association with other stimuli and paradigms. The practical reading for a consumer is that knowing roughly what a thing costs protects better than any amount of alertness to the bias, and that the protection is specific to the domain a person knows.
Smith, Windschitl and Bruchmann ran four studies on whether knowing about the subject reduces anchoring, a question the earlier literature had answered inconsistently. It does. Greater knowledge was associated with smaller anchoring effects whether knowledge was measured by asking people to rate their own or by testing it objectively. Participants from the United States and India anchored less when answering questions about their own country than about the other one, which is the same finding arriving through a different route. Further studies in the paper reproduced the association with other stimuli and paradigms. The practical reading for a consumer is that knowing roughly what a thing costs protects better than any amount of alertness to the bias, and that the protection is specific to the domain a person knows.
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Four studies; greater knowledge associated with smaller anchoring effects. doi:10.1002/ejsp.1921
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https://doi.org/10.1002/ejsp.1921
DOI: 10.1002/ejsp.1921