Empirical evidence for resource-rational anchoring and adjustment

Falk Lieder, Thomas L. Griffiths, Quentin J. Quentin, Noah D. Goodman

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

29 Scopus citations

Abstract

People’s estimates of numerical quantities are systematically biased towards their initial guess. This anchoring bias is usually interpreted as sign of human irrationality, but it has recently been suggested that the anchoring bias instead results from people’s rational use of their finite time and limited cognitive resources. If this were true, then adjustment should decrease with the relative cost of time. To test this hypothesis, we designed a new numerical estimation paradigm that controls people’s knowledge and varies the cost of time and error independently while allowing people to invest as much or as little time and effort into refining their estimate as they wish. Two experiments confirmed the prediction that adjustment decreases with time cost but increases with error cost regardless of whether the anchor was self-generated or provided. These results support the hypothesis that people rationally adapt their number of adjustments to achieve a near-optimal speed-accuracy tradeoff. This suggests that the anchoring bias might be a signature of the rational use of finite time and limited cognitive resources rather than a sign of human irrationality.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)775-784
Number of pages10
JournalPsychonomic Bulletin and Review
Volume25
Issue number2
DOIs
StatePublished - Apr 1 2018
Externally publishedYes

All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes

  • Experimental and Cognitive Psychology
  • Developmental and Educational Psychology
  • Arts and Humanities (miscellaneous)

Keywords

  • Anchoring-and-adjustment
  • Bounded rationality
  • Cognitive biases
  • Heuristics
  • Probabilistic reasoning

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