托福口语 Task 3

In psychology, the concept of 'anchoring effect' refers to the tendency for individuals to rely heavily on the first piece of information they receive (the 'anchor') when making decisions. Once an anchor is set, subsequent judgments are made by adjusting away from that anchor, often leading to biased outcomes. This cognitive bias is observed in various contexts, such as pricing, negotiation, and estimation tasks, where the initial value disproportionately influences final choices.

Professor: Let me give you a real-world example. In a study, participants were asked to estimate the price of a used car. Half of them were first shown a list with a very high price, say $10,000, as a suggested starting point. The other half saw a low starting point, like $2,000. Even though the actual car was worth around $5,000, those who saw the high anchor estimated the car to be worth around $8,500, while those who saw the low anchor estimated only $3,200. Notice how their final estimates were clearly biased toward the initial anchor, not based on the car's true value. This demonstrates how the first number presented can skew our judgment, even when we know it's arbitrary.