Read an Academic Passage

[1]When people estimate a number, such as the price of a house or the length of a river, they are often influenced by a number they have just seen, even one that has nothing to do with the question. Psychologists call this tendency anchoring. It was first described in detail by Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman in the 1970s.

[2]In one well-known experiment, participants watched a wheel of numbers that had secretly been set to stop at either 10 or 65. They were then asked what percentage of United Nations members were African countries. Those who had seen 10 gave an average estimate of 25 percent, while those who had seen 65 gave an average of 45 percent. Although participants believed the wheel was random, it still shaped their answers. Researchers explain that people start from the anchor and adjust away from it, but they usually stop adjusting too soon.

[3]Anchoring affects many everyday decisions. Shoppers judge a sale price to be a bargain when it appears next to a much higher original price, and the first offer in a salary negotiation tends to pull the final agreement toward it. Even experts are not immune: in some studies, experienced judges gave longer sentences after rolling dice that showed high numbers.