Numeric Judgments under Uncertainty: The Role of Knowledge in Anchoring

Three studies demonstrate that anchoring effects—the assimilation of a numeric estimate to a previously considered standard—depend on judges’ knowledge about the target object. Manipulating judges’ knowledge by varying the context in which a fictitious target is presented, Study 1 demonstrates that anchor plausibility determines how a given anchor is processed and depends on what knowledge base is used to judge the anchor. Studies 2 and 3 show that the less judges know about the target object, the more they assimilate their estimate to the anchor. These differences in the magnitude of the anchoring effect appear to be mediated by differences in the perceived plausibility of the anchors. Furthermore, Study 3 demonstrates that these effects even hold when the selection of the anchor values is under participants’ control. © 2000 Academic Press