anchoring-y [Biases & Fallacies]

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======  Anchoring Bias ======

By [[yiler-huang| Yiler Huang]]

Anchoring Bias is a bias that happens a lot subconsciously in many of our life decisions. When new information is presented to you, it often becomes an “anchor” for similar information and affects your decisions in certain ways. For example, the first “expensive” item I owned was a Nintendo 3DS (a handheld console) that I got at around 9. At that time I would compare the prices of many things with the 3DS to determine if something is pricey or not. In this case the price of the 3DS acted as an anchor that affected my perception of price and money.

 This bias is also commonly used in marketing to make you think certain products are cheap. Companies might give their products an unusually high price, then cut the price down when it is on sale. This creates the illusion that the product is a lot cheaper than the original price, but in reality the original price was already too much to begin with. 

Anchoring Bias is useful when you are negotiating with people. You can present people with an idea that’s unacceptable to them first, then compromise it to make it seem a lot more acceptable.