I dont really think it would work like that. My understanding of anchoring is that they think 40 and then search for the nearest reasonable answer and whether that’s above or below the number correlates to their initial internal beliefs about the value in question. That is to say, if he originally thought it was ten, he would think 40, and then consider (subconsciously) all numbers between 40 and zero in decreasing order. I expect he would stop no earlier than 20 (or maybe as low as 15 :D).
I assumed he was unwilling to tell an exact number before, so he would probably not do it afterwards. He will only tell whether it is higher or lower than 40, and I suppose anchoring will move the median of the probability distribution towards the anchor, thus increasing the probability of answering “more than 40” in this case.
I think about making a poll here to test the hypothesis, only not sure how to do that.
I disagree. I suppose it may slightly increase the probability of the “more than 40” answer, but his prior expectations have to play some role. Since there would be no other real factors, the effect of his prior expectation would in my opinion shift his answer downwards, yielding the “less than 40″ answer. Anchoring pulls you towards the suggested value, but I’m not sure in this case it would pull it ABOVE the suggested value, especially given the difference between his original beliefs and the anchor.
I dont really think it would work like that. My understanding of anchoring is that they think 40 and then search for the nearest reasonable answer and whether that’s above or below the number correlates to their initial internal beliefs about the value in question. That is to say, if he originally thought it was ten, he would think 40, and then consider (subconsciously) all numbers between 40 and zero in decreasing order. I expect he would stop no earlier than 20 (or maybe as low as 15 :D).
I assumed he was unwilling to tell an exact number before, so he would probably not do it afterwards. He will only tell whether it is higher or lower than 40, and I suppose anchoring will move the median of the probability distribution towards the anchor, thus increasing the probability of answering “more than 40” in this case.
I think about making a poll here to test the hypothesis, only not sure how to do that.
I disagree. I suppose it may slightly increase the probability of the “more than 40” answer, but his prior expectations have to play some role. Since there would be no other real factors, the effect of his prior expectation would in my opinion shift his answer downwards, yielding the “less than 40″ answer. Anchoring pulls you towards the suggested value, but I’m not sure in this case it would pull it ABOVE the suggested value, especially given the difference between his original beliefs and the anchor.
I have tested the hypothesis experimentally, and it seems that the probability is increased quite substantially. See here.