By: steve-wang
Anchoring bias is when someone trusts the first information they get too much. Is this bias real? If so, how easily can it be used? My guess is that it is real. There has been a lot of data and research done on this topic and it is generally agreed upon that it is really by most people. It is also observed to be used in many places that sell items. Places like supermarket seem to have very deliberate placements for all of their things. As probably some famous historic person or some marketing team somewhere might have said: “People won't believe until they see it for themselves.” So, I have to see and test it for myself.
To test this we split the people into two groups and we showed each group a piece of paper with a line on it. We then told them the line was 10cm for group A and another line was 90cm for group B. The we showed a another piece of paper to both groups (the same this time) and asked them for the length of the new line which was 60cm. If Anchoring bias is real, there will be a trend that is clearly visible differentiating the groups. The people were sourced from near YuanShan MRT station at about 1:45pm to 2:30pm. So, fewer students can be expected.
Age group 1: students Age group 2: young people working people Age group 3: old people
Here is the results: <csv> Gender,Age,Short/Long,Answer F,2,L,45 F,2,L,70 F,2,L,60 M,3,L,46 F,2,L,70 F,2,L,45 F,2,L,70 M,2,L,60 F,2,L,50 F,2,L,45 F,2,L,75 Average,,,57.81818182 M,2,S,60 M,2,S ,50 M,2,S,70 M,2,S,60 F,2,S,60 F,2,S,50 F,2,S,50 F,2,S,50 F,2,S,60 F,2,S,100 Average,,,61 </csv>
The results show that the people who were shown the longer line at first guessed the line was shorter most of the time compared to the other group who were showed the longer line at first. This clearly shows that anchoring bias has played a big effect in people’s minds and that anchoring bias is real. An interesting thing is that most people who were showed the shorter line guessed the lines more correctly even thought 60cm (the new line) was closer to the 9cm line (longer line). This might tell u something about how anchoring bias works.
In conclusion, the results show that anchoring bias is real and it can be easily taken advantage of as shown in the experiment below. It is especially easy to take advantage of when there is an obvious good and bad option.