The less knowledge you have or the less confident you are, the more likely you are to anchor yourself in unreasonable idea. But they become standards for decision making. In guessing Napoleon’s height, the numbers five feet or six feet should mean nothing.

When asked, “Was Napoleon taller than six feet?” you are more likely to guess his height higher than when asked “Is Napoleon taller than five feet?” In fact, 200 dollars have nothing to do with the buyer’s decision in buying the watch. The random number had an anchoring effect, pulling subjects. When the wheel landed on 60, the average estimate was 45. When the wheel landed on 10, the average estimate given by the subjects was 25. If a watch seller first offers 200 dollars and then lowers it to 100 dollars, consumers are more likely to buy the watch. Tversky and Kahneman found that the anchoring value of the number on the wheel had a pronounced effect on the answers the subjects provided. In this regard, a cognitive bias that describes the common human tendency to rely too heavily on the first piece of information offered when making decisions is called the anchoring effect. Once an anchor is lowered, the ship moves only within the length of the rope tied to the anchor.

The anchoring effect